k;»- 


.*;s^. 


4 


vvv,  Sij-  - 


NOTES  ON  THE  PARABLES  OF  OUR  LORD. 


Works  by  the  same  Author,  for  sale  by  D.  Appleton  Sf  Co. 

I. 

NOTES  ON  THE  MIRACLES. 

One  volume.  8vo.     Price,  $3  50. 
II. 

CHRIST  THE  DESIRE  OF  ALL  NATIOJNS; 

OR, 

THE  UNCONSCIOUS  PROPHECIES  OF  HEATHENDOM. 

BEING 

THE  HULSEAN  LECTURES  FOR  THE  YEAR  1846. 
One  vol.  Svo.     Price,  $1  50. 

in. 
EXPOSITION  , 

OF    THE 

SERMON   ON   THE   MOUNT, 

DRAWN  FROM  THE  WRITINGS  oV  ST.  AUGUSTINE.  WITH 
OBSERVATIONS. 

One  volume. — price  $1  25. 


NOTES 


ON 


d'?U 


THE  PARABLES  OF  OUR  LORD 


BY 


RICHARD  CHENEYIX  TRENCH,  M.  A., 

Vicar  of  itchen  stoke,  hants  ;    professor  of  divinity,  king's  college,, 
london  ;  and  examinin(j  chaplain  to  the  lord  bishop  of  oxford. 


FIRST  AMERICAN,  FROM  THE  THIRD  ENGLISH  EDITION. 


NEW-YORK : 
b.  APPLETON  &  COMPANY,  200  BROADWAY! 

PHILADELPHIA: 
GEO.  S.  APPLETON,  148  CHESNUT-ST, 

M  DCCC  XLVn. 


ADVEMSEMENT  OF  THE  AMERICAN  PUBLISHERS. 


That  a  work  has  reached  a  third  edition  in  England,  although  one 
evidence  of  its  merit,  may  not  always  be  a  safe  Or  satisfactory  reason  for 
its  republication  in  this  country.  But  in  regard  to  the  volume  herewith 
sent  Ibrth,  the  subject  of  which  it  treats  is  of  such  general  interest,  and  the 
ability  with  which  it  has  been  prepared  is  so  marked,  and  has  been  so  uni- 
versally acknowledged,  that  the  publishers  cannot  hesitate  to  believe  they 
are  doing  good  service  to  the  cause  of  sound  theological  learning  in  mak- 
ing it  accessible  to  a  large  class  of  American  readers,  who  in  all  probabil- 
ity would  not  otherwise  be  able  to  possess  it. 

The  parable,  whilst  it  is  amongst  the  earliest  modes  of  conveying  truth 
to  the  mind,  is  at  the  same  time  the  most  effective.  Never  losing  its  vigor 
by  age  or  repetition,  it  convinces  sooner  than  logical  argument,  and  strikes 
Ihe  imagination  more  readily  than  a  living  example.*  From  the  fact  that 
the  parables  of  our  Lord  form  a  very  considerable  portion  of  his  recorded 
teaching,  and  that  he  was  accustomed  by  them  to  enforce  the  highest  moral 
precepts,  to  illustrate  important  points  of  doctrine,  and  to  give  prophetical 
intimation  of  future  events  relating  to  himself  and  his  mission,  it  is  obvious 
that  a  competent  knowledge  of  this  portion  of  the  Gospels,  while  it  is  es- 
sential to  the  Christian  teacher,  is  of  the  greatest  value  to  every  member  of 
the  Church.  And  amply  will  these  sacred  fictions  repay  the  most  constant 
perusal.  Attractive  in  the  highest  degree,  even  to  childhood,  while  as  yet 
like  Samuel  the  little  hearer  "  does  not  know  the  Lord,  nor  is  the  word  of 
the  Lord  yet  revealed  to  him,"  (1  Sam.  iii.  7,)  they  are  the  delight  of  riper 
manhood,  and  never  fail  to  offer  to  the  attentive  reader,  beauties  to  admire, 
principles  to  ponder,  and  examples  to  allure.     Thus  do  they  illustrate  the 

*  Haec  autem  docendi  ratio,  quae  facit  ad  illustrationem  anliquis  seculis  plurimum 
adhibebatur.  Ut  Hieroglyphica  Uteris,  ita  Parabolae  argumentis  erant  antiquiores.  At- 
que  hodie  etiam  et  semper,  eximius  est  et  fuit  Parabolarum  vigor ;  cum  nee  argumenta 
tam  perspicua  nee  vera  exempla  tam  apta,  esse  posslQt.-^BACONi  de  Augmentis  Scien- 
tiarum,  lib.  2.  cap.  13. 


6  ADVERTISEMENT  OP  THE  AMERICAN  PUBLISHERS. 

wisdom  and  benevolence  of  that  Heavenly  Teacher  "who  spake  as  never 
man  spake,"  and  exhibit  a  skill  in  the  statement  of"  moral  principles  to 
which  no  merely  human  intellect  was  ever  equal,  and  a  power  and  beauty 
of  illustration  which  no  poet  or  orator  ever  approached. 

In  the  present  work  the  parables  of  our  Lord  are  collected  together, 
compared,  and  explained;  and  by  a  judicious  use  of  learning,  and  a  fertile 
and  happy  employment  of  illustrative  comment,  they  are  rendered  emi- 
nently profitable  "  for  doctrine,  for  reproof,  for  correction,  and  instruction  in 
righteousness."  "  As  a  mere  delight  to  the  understanding,"  says  Dr.  Ar- 
nold, "  I  know  of  none  greater  than  thus  bringing  together  the  different  and 
scattered  jewels  of  God's  word,  and  arranging  them  in  one  perfect  group. 
For  whatever  is  the  pleasure  of  contemplating  wisdom  absolutely  inex- 
haustible, employed  on  no  abstract  matter  of  science,  but  on  our  very  own 
nature,  opening  the  secrets  of  our  hearts,  and  disclosing  the  whole  plan  of 
our  course  in  life ;  of  the  highest  wisdom  clothed  in  a  garb  of  most  surpassing 
beauty ;  such  is  the  pleasure  to  the  mere  understanding  of  searching  into 
the  words  of  Christy  and  blending  them  into  the  image  of  his  perfect  will 
respecting  us."  If  the  understanding  can  be  thus  delighted  and  improved, 
can  it  fail  but  that  at  the  same  time  the  heart  will  be  made  better  ?  Mr. 
Trench,  while  informing  the  understanding,  has  never  neglected  the  op- 
portunity to  excite  the  affections,  to  regulate  them,  and  lead  them  to  seek 
the  blessed  influences  of  that  Holy  Spirit  which  can  alone  purify  them  and 
fit  them  for  the  service  of  God.  These  "  scattered  jewels  of  God's  word," 
of  which  Dr.  Arnold  speaks,  he  has  brought  together,  and  fixed  them  in  a 
setting,  not  worthy  indeed  of  their  richness  and  lustre — what  silver,  or  gold 
even,  of  human  workmanship  could  possess  such  value? — but  the  framework 
is  yet  skilfully  constructed,  and  is  wrought  by  a  devout  as  well  as  a  learned 
and  earnest  mind,  and  will  hold  its  pearls  of  wisdom  so  that  we  may  have  the 
opportunity  of  gazing  upon  them  in  their  concentrated  form  with  delight 
and  profit. 

Under  these  convictions  of  the  importance  of  the  subject  and  the  suc- 
cessful manner  \i\  which  it  has  been  treated  by  Mr.  Trench,  this  volume  is 
now  commended  to  the  notice  of  American  readers  by  the  Publishers. 

New-York^  June  IStft,  1847. 


CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTORY  REMARKS. 

CHAP, 

I.  On  the  Definition  of  the  Parable 
II.  On  Teaching  by  Parables  .... 

III.  On  the  Interpretation  of  Parables 

IV.  On  other  Parables  besides  those  in  the  Scriptures  . 


PAGE. 

9 

16 
30 
43 


PARABLES. 

I.  The  Sower              .             .             .             .             • 

54 

II.  The  Tares        ...... 

69 

III.  The  Mustard  Seed              .             .             .             .             . 

87 

IV.  The  Leaven     ...... 

92 

V.  The  Hid  Treasure               .             .             .             .             • 

98 

VI.  The  Pearl 

105 

VII.  The  Draw  Net       . 

108 

VIII.  The  Unmerciful  Servant          .             .             •             . 

117 

IX.  The  Labourers  in  the  Vineyard      ,             .             .             . 

131 

X.  The  Two  Sons             ..... 

150 

XI.  The  Wicked  Husbandmen              .             .             .             . 

154 

XII.  The  Marriage  of  the  King's  Son 

170 

XIII.  The  Ten  Virgins 

192 

XIV.  The  Talents 

210 

XV.  The  Seed  Growing  Secretly           .             .             .             . 

225 

XVI.  The  Two  Debtors 

230 

XVII.  The  Good  Samaritan         .... 

242 

XVIII.  The  Friend  at  Midnight          .... 

255 

XIX.  The  Rich  Fool 

261 

XX.  The  Barren  Fig  Tree 

269 

XXI.  The  Great  Supper              .             .             .             .             • 

279 

8  CONTENTS. 

XXII.  The  Lost  Sheep        .......  288 

XXIII.  The  Lost  Piece  of  Money  .....  298 

XXIV.  The  Prodigal  Son  ......  303 

XXV.  The  Unjust  Steward        ......  331 

XXVI.  The  Rich  Man  and  Lazarus  .....  352 

XXVII.  Unprofitable  Servants 376 

XXVIII.  The  Unjust  Judge '.  382 

XXIX.  The  Pharisee  and  the  Publican         .....  392 

XXX.  The  Pounds 400 


INTRODUCTOM  EEMARKS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

ON  THE  DEFINITION  OF  THE  PARABLE. 

Those  writers  who  have  had  occasion  to  define  a  parable  *  do  not 
appear  to  have  found  it  an  easy  task  to  give  such  a  satisfying  definition 
as  should  omit  none  of  its  distinguishing  marks,  and  yet  at  the  same  time 
include  nothing  that  was  superfluous  and  merely  accidental.  Rather 
than  attempt  to  add  another  to  the  many  definitions  already  given  f ,  I 
will  seek  to  note  briefly  what  seems  to  me  to  diflference  it  from  the  fable, 
the  allegory,  and  such  other  forms  of  composition  as  most  closely  border 
upon  it.  In  the  process  of  thus  distinguishing  it  from  those  forms  of 
composition,   with  which   it  is  most  nearly  allied,  and  therefore  most 

*  HapaPoXi],  from  napa.SdWeiv,  projicere,  objicere,  i.  e.  tI  rivi,  to  put  forth  one  thing 
before  or  beside  another  ;  and  it  is  assumed,  when  TrapafioMis  used  for  parable,  though 
not  necessarily  included  in  the  word,  that  the  purpose  for  which  they  are  set  side  by 
side  is  that  they  may  be  compared  one  with  the  other.  That  this  is  not  necessarily 
included  is  proved  not  only  from  the  derivation,  but  from  the  fact  that  the  word  itself 
and  the  whole  family  of  cognate  words,  as  irapiPoXos,  Tapo,<?oXa)f,  parabolanus,  are  used 
in  altogether  a  diiferent  sense,  yet  one  growing  out  of  the  same  root,  in  which  the  no- 
tion o^  putting  forth  is  retained,  but  it  is  no  longer  for  the  purpose  of  comparison, 
which  is  only  the  accident,  not  of  the  essence  of  the  word.  Thus  irapiffoXos,  qui  ohjicit 
se  praesentissimo  vitae  periculo,  one  who  exposes  his  life,  as  those  called  parabolani,  he- 
cause  they  buried  infected  corpses  at  Alexandria. 

t  Many  from  the  Greek  Fathers  are  to  be  found  in  Suicer's  Thes.,  s.  v.  Kapa0o\n- 
Jerome,  on  Mark  iv.,  defines  it  thus :  Sermonem  utilem,  sub  idonea  figura  expressum, 
et  in  recessu,  continentem  spiritualem  aliquam  admonitionem  ;  and  he  calls  it  finely  in 
another  place  (Ad  Algas.),  Quasi  umbra  praevia  veritatis.  Among  the  modems, 
Unger  (De  Parah.  Jesu  Naturd,  p.  30)  :  Parabola  Jesu  est  collatio  per  narratiunculam 
fictam,  sed  verisimilem,  serio  illustrans  rem  sublimiorem.  Teelman :  Parabola  est 
similitudo  a  rebus  communibus  et  obviis  desumta  ad  significandum  quicquam  spirituale 
et  caeleste.  Bengel :  Parabola  est  oratio,  quae  pernarrationem  fictam  sed  verjE  similem, 
a.  rebus  ad  vitae  communis  usum  pertinentibus  desumtam,  veritates  minus  notas  aut 
morales  repraesentat. 

2 


10  ON  THE  DEFINITION 

likely  to  be  confounded,  and  justifying  the  distinction,  its  essential  pro- 
perties  will  come  before  us  much  more  clearly  than  I  could  hope  to 
bring  them  in  any  other  way. 

1.  There  are  some  .who  have  confounded  the  parable  with  the  ^so- 
pic  fable,  or  drawn  only  a  slight  and  hardly  perceptible  line  of  distinc- 
tion between  them,  as  for  instance  Lessing  and  Storr,  who  affirm  that 
the  fable  relates  an  event  as  having  actually  taken  place  at  a  certain 
time,  while  the  parable  only  assumes  it  as  possible.  But  not  to  say 
that  examples  altogether  fail  to  bear  them  out  in  this  assertion,  the  dif- 
ference is  much  more  real,  and  far  more  deeply  seated  than  this.  The 
parable  is  constructed  to  set  forth  a  truth  spiritual  and  heavenly :  this 
the  fable,  with  all  its  value,  is  not ;  it  is  essentially  of  the  earth,  and 
never  lifts  itself  above  the  earth.  It  never  has  a  higher  aim  than  to  in- 
culcate maxims  of  prudential  morality,  industry,  caution,  foresight ;  and 
these  it  will  sometimes  recommend  even  at  the  expense  of  the  higher 
self- forgetting  virtues.  The  fable  just  reaches  that  pitch  of  morality 
which  the  world  will  understand  and  approve.  But  it  has  no  place  in 
the  Scripture,*  and  in  the  nature  of  things  could  have  none,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  Scripture  excludes  it ;  that  purpose  being  the  awakening  of  man 
to  a  consciousness  of  a  divine  original,  the  education  of  the  reason,  and 
of  all  which  is  spiritual  in  man,  and  not,  except  incidentally,  the  sharp- 
eninor  of  the  understanding.  For  the  purposes  of  the  fable,  which  are 
the  j-ecommendation  and  enforcement  of  the  prudential  virtues,  the  regu- 
lation of  that  in  man  which  is  instinct  in  beasts,  hi  itself  a  laudable  dis- 
cipline, but  by  itself  leaving  him  only  a  subtler  beast  of  the  field, — for 
these  purposes,  examples  and  illustrations  taken  from  the  world  beneath 
him  are  admirably  suited .f  That  world  is  therefore  the  haunt  and  the 
main  region,  though  by  no  means  the  exclusive  one,  of  the  fable  :  even 

*  The  two  fables  that  are  found  in  the  Old  Testament,  that  of  the  trees  which 
would  choose  a  king,  (Judg.  ix.  8-15),  and  the  brief  one  of  the  thistle  and  cedar,  (2 
Kin.  xiv.  9),  may  seem  to  impeach  the  universality  of  this  rule,  but  do  not  so  in  fact. 
For  in  neither  case  is  it  God  that  is  speaking,  nor  yet  messengers  of  his,  delivering  his 
counsel:  but  men,  and  from  an  earthly  standing  point,  not  a  divine.  Jotham  seeks 
only  to  teach  the  men  of  Shechem  their  folly,  not  their  sin,  in  making  Abimelech 
king  over  them  :  the  fable  never  lifting  itself  to  the  rebuke  of  sin,  as  it  is  sin  ;  this  is 
beyond  its  region ;  but  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  also  folly.  And  Jehoash,  in  the  same 
way,  would  make  Amaziah  see  his  presumption  and  pride,  in  challenging  him  to  the 
conflict,  not  thereby  teaching  him  any  moral  lesson,  but  only  giving  evidence  in  the 
fable  which  he  uttered,  that  his  own  pride  was  offended  by  the  challenge  of  the 
Jewish  king. 

t  The  greatest  of  all  fables,  the  Reineke  Fuchs,  affords  ample  illustration  of  all 
this  ;  it  is  throughout  a  glorifying  of  cunning  as  the  guide  of  life  and  the  deliverer 
from  all  ev^l. 


OF  THE  PARABLE.  H 

when  men  are  introduced,  it  is  on  the  side  by  which  they  are  connected 
with  that  lower  world ;  while  on  the  other  hand,  in  the  parable,  the 
world  of  animals,  though  not  wholly  excluded,  finds  only  admission  in 
so  far  as  it  is  related  to  man.  The  relation  of  beasts  to  one  another  not 
being  spiritual,  can  supply  no  analogies,  can  be  in  no  wise  helpful  for 
declaring  the  truths  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  But  all  man's  relations  to 
man  are  spiritual,  many  of  his  relations  to  the  world  beneath  him  are  so 
also.  His  lordship  over  the  animals,  for  instance,  rests  on  his  higher 
spiritual  nature,  is  a  dominion  given  to  him  from  above;  therefore,  as  in 
the  instance  of  the  shepherd  and  sheep  (John  x.)  and  elsewhere,  it  will 
serve  to  image  forth  deeper  truths  of  the  relation  of  God  to  man. 

It  belongs  to  this,  the  loftier  standing  point  of  the  parable,  that  it 
should  be  deeply  earnest,  allowing  itself  therefore  in  no  jesting  nor  rail- 
lery at  the  weaknesses,  the  follies,  or  the  crimes  of  men,*  Severe  and 
indignant  it  may  be,  but  it  never  jests  at  the  calamities  of  men,  however 
well  deserved,  and  its  indignation  is  that  of  holy  love  :  while  in  this  rail- 
lery, and  in  these  bitter  mockings,  the  fabulist  not  unfrequently  in- 
dulges ;-\ — he  rubs  biting  salt  into  the  wounds  of  men's  souls — it  may 
be,  perhaps  it  generally  is,  with  a  desire  to  heal  those  hurts,  yet  still  in 
a  very  different  spirit  from  that  in  which  the  affectionate  Saviour  of 
men  poured  oil  and  wine  into  the  bleeding  wounds  of  humanity. 

*  Phaedrus'  definition  of  the  fable  squares  with  that  here  given : 
Duplex  hbelli  dos  est,  ut  risum  moveat, 
Et  quod  prudenti  vitam  consilio  monet. 

t  As  finds  place,  for  instance,  in  La  Fontaine's  celebrated  fable, — La  Cigale  ayant 
chante  tout  I'ete, — in  which  the  ant,  in  reply  to  the  petition  of  the  grasshopper,  which  is 
starving  in  the  winter,  reminds  it  how  it  sung  all  the  summer,  and  bids  it  to  dance  now. 
That  fable,  commending  as  it  does  foresight  and  prudence,  preparation  against  a  day 
of  need,  might  be  compared  for  purposes  of  contrast  to  more  than  one  parable  urging 
the  same,  as  Matt.  xxv.  1,  Luke  xvi.  1  ;  but  with  this  mighty  difference,  that  the  fabu- 
list has  only  wordly  needs  in  his  eye,  it  is  only  against  these  that  he  urges  to  lay  up  by 
timely  industry  a  sufficient  store  ;  while  the  Lord  in  his  parables  would  have  us  to  lay 
up  for  eternal  life,  for  the  day  when  not  the  bodies,  but  the  souls  that  have  nothing  in 
store,  will  be  naked,  and  hungry,  and  miserable, — to  prepare  for  ourselves  a  reception 
into  everlasting  habitations.  The  image  which  the  French  fabulist  uses  was  very  well 
capable  of  such  higher  application,  had  he  been  conscious  of  any  such  needs,  (see  Prov. 
vi.  8,  and  on  that  verse,  Coteler,  Patt.  Apos.,  v.  i.  p.  104,  note  13,  and  Augustine, 
Enarr.  in  Ps.  Ixvi.  2.)  In  Saadi's  far  nobler  fable.  The  Ant  and  the  Nightingale,  from 
whence  La  Fontaine's  is  undoubtedly  borrowed,  such  application  is  distinctly  intimated. 
Von  Hammer  has  in  this  view  an  interesting  comparison  between  the  French  and  the 
Persian  fable.  (Gesch.  d.  schOn.  Redek.  Pers.,  p.  207.) — The  fable  with  which  Plero- 
dotus,  (i.  141,)  relates  Cyrus  to  have  answered  the  Ionian  ambassadors,  when  lh?y 
offered  him  a  late  submission,  is  another  specimen  of  the  bitter  irony,  of  which  this  class 
of  composition  is  often  the  vehicle. 


12  ON  THE  DEFINITION 

And  yet  again,  there  is  another  point  of  difference  between  the  para- 
ble and  the  ftible.  While  it  can  never  be  said  that  the  fabulist  is  re- 
gardless of  truth,  since  it  is  neither  his  intention  to  deceive,  when  he 
attributes  language  and  discourse  of  reason  to  trees,  and  birds,  and 
beasts,  nor  is  any  one  deceived  by  him  ;  yet  the  severer  reverence  for 
truth,  which  is  habitual  to  the  higher  moral  teacher,  will  not  allow  him 
to  indulge  even  in  this  sporting  with  the  truth,  this  temporary  suspension 
of  its  laws,  though  upon  agreement,  or,  at  least,  with  tacit  understand- 
ing. In  his  mind,  the  creation  of  God,  as  it  came  from  the  Creator's 
hands,  is  too  perfect,  has  too  much  of  reverence  owing  to  it,  to  be  repre- 
sented otherwise  than  as  it  really  is.  The  great  Teacher  by  parables, 
therefore,  allowed  himself  in  no  transgression  of  the  established  laws  of 
nature — in  nothing  marvellous  or  anomalous ;  he  presents  to  us  no 
speaking  trees  or  reasoning  beasts,*  and  we  should  be  at  once  conscious 
of  an  unfitness  in  his  so  doing. 

2.  The  parable  is  different  from  the  mythus,  inasmuch  as  in  the 
mythus,  the  truth  and  that  which  is  only  the  vehicle  of  the  truth  are 
wholly  blended  together :  and  the  consciousness  that  there  is  any  dis- 
tinction between  them,  that  it  is  possible  to  separate  the  one  from  the 
other,  belongs  only  to  a  later  and  more  reflective  age  than  that  in  which 
the  mythus  itself  had  birth,  or  those  in  which  it  was  heartily  believed. 
The  mythic  narrative  presents  itself  not  merely  as  the  vehicle  of  the 
truth,  but  as  itself  being  the  truth  ;  while  in  the  parable,  there  is  a  per- 
fect consciousness  in  all  minds,  of  the  distinctness  between  form  and 
essence,  shell  and  kernel,  the  precious  vessel  and  yet  more  precious 
wine  which  it  contains.  There  is  also  the  mythus  of  another  class,  the 
artificial  product  of  a  later  self-conscious  age,  of  which  many  inimita- 
ble specimens  are  to  be  found  in  Plato,  devised  with  distinct  intention 
of  embodying  some  important  spiritual  truth,  of  giving  an  outward  sub- 
sistence to  an  idea.  But  these,  while  they  have  many  points  of  resem- 
blance with  the  parable,  yet  claim  no  credence  for  themselves  either  as 
actual  or  possible,  (in  this  differing  from  the  parable,)  but  only  for  the 

*  Klinckhardt  {De  Horn.  Dh-.  el.  Laz.,  p.  2):  Fabula  aliquod  vita;  communis  mo- 
rumque,  praeceptum  simplici  et  nonnunquam  jocosa  oratione  illustrat  per  exemplum 
plerumqne  contra  veram  naturam  fictum  :  parabola  autem  sententiam  sublimiorem  (ad 
res  divinas  pertinentem)  simplici  quidem  sed  gravi  et  seria  oratione  illustrat  per  exem- 
plum iia  excogitatum  ut  cum  rerum  natura  maxim6  convenire  videatur.  And  Cicero 
(De  Invent.,  i.  19) :  Fabula  est  in  quft  nee  verae  ncc  verisimiles  res  continentur.     But 

of  the  parable  Origen  says,  "Ean  napa^oMl,  Atfyoj  iig  Trcpl    yu'O/ifvor,  nil    yivoiih'OV   fdv  Kara 

TO  liriTovySwaiicvov  Si  ycvtaOai.  There  13  then  some  reason  for  the  fault  which  Calov 
finds  with  Grotius,  though  he  is  only  too  ready  to  find  fault,  for  commonly  using  the 
terms  fabula  and  fahella  in  speaking  of  our  Lord's  parables,  terms  which  certainly 
have  an  unpleasant  sound  in  the  ear. 


OF  THE  PARABLE.  13 

truth  which  they  embody  and  declare.  The  same  is  the  case  when  upon 
some  old  legend  or  myth  that  has  long  been  current,  there  is  thrust  some 
spiritual  significance,  clearly  by  an  afterthought ;  in  which  case  it  per- 
ishes in  the  letter  that  it  may  live  in  the  spirit ;  all  outward  subsistence 
is  denied  to  it,  for  the  sake  of  asserting  the  idea  which  it  is  made  to  con- 
tain. To  such  a  process,  as  is  well  known,  the  latter  Platonists  submit- 
ted the  old  mythology  of  Greece.  For  instance,  Narcissus  falling  in  love 
with  his  own  image  in  the  water-brook,  and  pining  there,  was  the  sym- 
bol of  man  casting  himself  forth  into  the  world  of  shows  and  appearan- 
ces, and  expecting  to  find  the  good  that  would  answer  to  his  nature  there, 
but  indeed  finding  only  disappointment  and  death.  It  was  their  meaning 
hereby  to  vindicate  that  mythology  from  charges  of  absurdity  or  immo- 
rality— to  put  a  moral  life  into  it,  whereby  it  should  maintain  its  ground 
against  the  new  life  of  Christianity,  though  indeed  they  were  only  thus 
hastening  the  destruction  of  whatever  lingering  faith  in  it  there  yet  sur- 
vived in  the  minds  of  men. 

3.  The  parable  is  also  clearly  distinguishable  from  the  proverb,* 
though  it  is  true  that  in  a  certain  degree,  the  words  are  used  interchange- 
ably in  the  New  Testament,  and  as  equivalent  the  one  to  the  other.  Thus, 
"  Physician  heal  thyself"  (Luke  iv.  23),  is  termed  a  parable,  being 
more  strictly  a  proverb  ;  so  again,  when  the  Lord  had  used  that  proverb, 
probably  already  familiar  to  his  hearers,!  "  If  the  blind  lead  the  blind, 
both  shall  fall  in  the  ditch,"  Peter  said,  "  Declai'e  unto  us  this  parable^' 
(Matt.  XV.  14,  15) ;  and  again,  Luke  v.  36  is  a  proverb  or  proverbial 
expression,  rather  than  a  parable,  which  name  it  bears.  So,  upon  the 
other  hand,  those  are  called  proverbs  in  St.  John,  which,  if  not  strictly 
parables,  yet  claim  much  closer  ailinity  to  the  parable  than  to  the  pro- 
verb, being  in  fact  allegories  :  thus  Christ's  setting  forth  of  his  relations 
to  his  people  under  those  of  a  shepherd  to  his  sheep,  is  termed  a  "  pro- 
verb," though  our  translators,  holding  fast  to  the  sense  rather  than  to 
the  letter,  have  rendered  it  a  "  parable."  (John  x.  6,  compare  xvi.  25, 
294)  ^t  is  not  difficult  to  explain  how  this  interchange  of  the  two  words 
should  have  come  to  pass.  Partly  from  the  fact  which  has  been  noted 
by  many,  of  there  being  but  one  word  in  the  Hebrew  to  signify  both  par- 
able  and  proverb  ;  which  circumstance  must  have  had  considerable  in- 

*  ITapoi/jia,  that  is,  TTiip'  oljjiov,  a  trite,  wayside  saying,  ^  irapoSia  But  some  de- 
rive it  from  o'i^in,  a  tale,  or  poem.  Yet  Passow's  explanation  of  the  latter  word  shows 
that  at  the  root  the  two  derivations  are  the  same. — See  Suicer's  Thes-,  s.  v.  irapoifiia. 

t  It  is  current  at  least  now  in  the  East,  as  I  find  it  in  a  collection  of  Turkish  Pro- 
verbs, in  Von  Hammer's  JMorgenl.  Kleehlatt,  p.  63. 

I  The  word  napa0o\fi  never  occurs  in  St.  John,  nor  napoijiia  in  the  three  first  Evan- 
gelists. 


14  ON  THE  DEFINITION 

fluence  upon  writers  accustomed  to  think  in  that  language,  and  itself 
arose  from  the  parable  and  proverb  being  alike  enigmatical  and  some- 
what obscure  forms  of  speech,  "dark  sayings,"  speaking  a  part  of  their 
meaning  and  leaving  the  rest  to  be  inferred.*  This  is  evidently  true  of 
the  parable,  and  in  fact  not  less  so  of  the  proverb.  For  though  such 
proverbs  as  have  become  the  heritage  of  an  entire  people,  and  have  ob- 
tained universal  currency,  may  be,  or  rather  may  have  become,  plain 
enough,  yet  in  themselves  proverbs  are  most  often  enigmatical,  claiming 
a  quickness  in  detecting  latent  affinities,  and  oftentimes  a  knowledge 
which  shall  enable  to  catch  more  or  less  remote  allusions,  for  their  right 
comprehension. f  And  yet  further  to  explain  how  the  terms  should  be 
often  indifferently  used, — the  proverb,  though  not  necessarily,  is  yet 
very  commonly  parabolical,:}:  that  is,  it  rests  upon  some  comparison  either 
expressed  or  implied,  as  for  example,  2  Pet.  ii.  22.  Or  again,  the  pro- 
verb is  often  a  concentrated  parable,  for  instance  that  one  above  quoted, 
"  If  the  blind  lead  the  blind,  both  shall  fall  into  the  ditch,"  might  evident- 
ly be  extended  with  ease  into  a  parable  ;  and  in  like  manner,  not  merely 
many  proverbs  might  thus  be  beaten  out  into  fables,  but  they  are  not  un- 
frequenlly  allusions  to  or  summings  up  in  a  single  phrase  of  some  well- 
known  fable.  § 

4.  It  only  remains  to  consider  wherein  the  parable  differs  from  the 
allegory,  which  it  does  in  form  rather  than  in  essence :  there  being  in 
the  allegory,  an  interpenetration  of  the  thing  signifying  and  the  thing 
signified,  the  qualities  and  properties  of  the  first  being  attributed  to  the 
last,  and  the  two  thus  blended  together,  instead  of  being  kept  quite  dis- 
tinct and  placed  side  by  side,  as  is  the  case  in  the  parable.  ||     Thus,  John 

*  So  we  find  our  Saviour  contrasts  the  speaking  in  proverbs  and  parables  (John 
xvi.  25),  with  the  speaking  plainly,  TrapjJriaia  (rdf  pniia),  every  word. 

+  For  instance,  to  take  two  common  Greek  proverbs:  Xj3fi<r£a  ;^aX/vti'Mi'  would  re- 
quire some  knowledge  of  the  Homeric  narrative,  BoCj  M  yXwo-tnit,  of  Attic  monies. 
The  obscurity  that  is  in  proverbs,  is  sufficiently  shown  by  the  fact  of  such  books  as  the 
Adagia  of  Erasmus,  in  which  he  brings  all  his  learning  to  bear  on  their  elucidation, 
and  yet  leaves  many  of  ihem  without  any  satisfactory  explanation.  And  see  also  the 
Parazmiographi  Graci,  (Oxf.  1836,)  p.  xi.-.xvi. 

t  It  is  not  necessarily,  as  some  have  affirmed,  a  Xo'yoj  t(Txii'aTtiTiiivoi,  for  instance 
'Ex^pwi'  aStopa  Swpa, or  Ts.vKVi  dneipM  wiiXr/iof,  and  innumerable  others  are  expressed  with- 
out figure  ;  but  very  many  are  also  parabolical,  and  generally  the  best," and  those  which 
have  become  most  truly  popular. 

§  Quintilian  says,  \lupotpia  fabella  brevior  .  .  .  Parabola  longius  res  quas  compa- 
rentur  repetere  solet.  On  the  distinction  between  the  Tnipa.tfoX^  and  vapatpia,  there  are 
some  good  remarks  in  Hash's  Thes.  Now  Theol.  P/iilolog.,  v.  2.  p.  503. 

II  Thus  LowTU  (De  Sac.  Pues.  Heb.,  Pral.  10) :  His  denique  subjicienda  est 
quasi  lex  quaedam  parabola;,  niniirum  ut  per  omnia  sibi  constet,  neque  arcessitis  propria 
admista  habeat.     In  quo  multum  diiTerta  prima  allcgorioE  specie,  qua;  a  simplici  meta- 


OF  THE  PARABLE.  15 

XV.  1-8,  "I  am  the  true  vine,  &c.,"  is  throughout  an  allegory,  as  there 
are  two  allegories  scarcely  kept  apart  from  one  another,  John  x.  1-16, 
the  first,  in  which  the  Lord  sets  himself  forth  as  the  Door  of  the  sheep, 
the  second,  as  the  good  Shepherd.  So,  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,"  is 
an  allegorical,  "  He  is  brought  as  a  lamb  to  the  slaughter,"  a  paraboli- 
cal expression.*  The  allegory  needs  not,  as  the  parable,  an  interpreta- 
tion to  be  brought  to  it  from  without,  since  it  contains  its  interpretation 
within  itself,  and,  as  the  allegory  proceeds,the  interpretation  proceeds  hand 
in  hand  with  it,  or  at  least  never  falls  far  behind  it  ;f  and  thus  the  allegory 
stands  to  the  metaphor,  as  the  more  elaborate  and  long  drawn  out  com- 
position of  the  same  kind,  in  the  same  relation  that  the  parable  does  to  the 
isolated  comparison  or  simile.  And  as  many  proverbs  are,  as  we  have 
seen,  concise  parables,  in  like  manner  many  also  are  brief  allegories. 
For  instance  the  following,  which  is  an  Eastern  proverb, — "  This  world 
is  a  carcase,  and  they  who  gather  round  it  are  dogs," — does  in  fact  in- 
terpret itself  as  it  goes  along,  and  needs  not  therefore  that  an  interpre- 
tation be  brought  to  it  from  without ;  while  it  is  otherwise  with  the 
proverb  spoken  by  our  Lord,  "  Wheresoever  the  carcase  is  there  will 
the  eagles  be  gathered  together," — this  gives  no  help  to  its  own  interpre- 
tation from  within,  and  is  a  saying,  of  which  the  darkness  and  difficulty 
have  been  abundantly  witnessed  by  the  many  interpretations  of  it  which 
have  been  proposed. 

To  sum  up  all  then,  the  parable  differs  from  the  fable,  moving  as  it 
does  in  a  spiritual  world,  and  never  transgressing  the  actual  order  of 
things  natural, — from  the  mythus,  there  being  in  the  latter  an  uncon- 

phor&  paulalim  procedens,  non  semper  continue  excludit  proprium,  a  propriis  in  trans- 
lata  paulatim  illapsa,  nee  minus  leniter  ex  translatis  in  propria  per  gradus  quosdam  se 
recipiens. 

*  Thus,  Isai.  v.  1-6  is  a  parable,  of  which  the  explanation  is  separately  given, 
ver.  7  ;  while  on  the  other  hand,  Ps.  Ixxx.  8-16,  resting  on  the  same  image,  is  an 
allegory  ;  since,  for  instance,  the  casting  out  of  the  heathen,  that  the  vine  might  be 
planted,  is  an  intermingling  of  the  thing  signifying  and  that  signified,  wherein  the 
note  that  distinguishes  the  allegory  from  the  parable  consists,  as  Quintilian  {[nst.  viii. 
3,  77),  observes;  for  having  defined  the  allegory,  he  proceeds:  In  omni  autem  n-apa- 
/ffoXp  aut  praecedit  similitudo,  res  sequitur,  aut  praecedit  res,  similitude  sequitur:  sed  in- 
terim libera  et  separata  est.  The  allegory  then  is  iranslatio,  the  parable  co/latio. — 
Since  writing  the  above  I  find  that  Bishop  Lowth  {De  Sac.  Foes.  Heh.,  Pral.  10)  has 
adduced  these  same  examples  from  Isaiah  and  the  Psalmist  to  illustrate  the  distinction. 

t  Of  all  this  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  affords  ample  illustration,  "  Interpreter"  ap- 
pearing there  as  one  of  the  persons  of  the  allegory.  Mr.  Hallam  (Liter,  of  Europe, 
V.  4,  p.  553)  mentions  this  as  a  certain  drawback  upon  the  book,  that,  "  in  his  lan- 
guage, Bunyan  sometimes  mingles  the  signification  too  much  with  the  fable  ;  we  might 
be  perplexed  between  the  imaginary  and  the  real  Christian  :"  but  is  not  this  of  the 
very  nature  of  the  allegorical  fable  ? 


IQ  ON  TEACHING  BY  PARABLES. 

scious  blending  of  the  deeper  meaning  with  the  outward  symbol,  the 
two  remaining  separate  and  separable  in  the  parable, — from  the  proverb, 
inasmuch  as  it  is  longer  carried  out,  and  not  merely  accidentally 
and  occasionally,  but  necessarily  figurative, — from  the  allegory,  com- 
paring  as  it  does  one  thing  with  another,  at  the  same  time  preserving 
them  apart  as  an  inner  and  an  outer,  not  transferring,  as  does  the  alle- 
gory, the  properties  and  qualities  and  relations  of  one  to  the  other. 


CHAPTER  II, 

ON  TEACHING  BY  PARABLES. 

However  our  Lord  may  on  one  or  more  occasions  have  made  use  of 
this  manner  of  teaching  by  parables,  with  the  intention  of  withdrawing 
from  certain  of  his  hearers  tlie  knowledge  of  truths,  which  they  were 
unworthy  or  unfit  to  receive  ;*  yet  we  may  assume  as  certain  that  his 

*  Macrobius  (Somn.  Scip.,  1.  i.  c.  2) :  Figuris  defendentibus  a  vilitate  secretum,. 
No  one  can  deny  that  this  was  sometimes  the  Lord's  purpose,  who  is  not  prepared  to 
do  great  violence  to  his  words,  as  recorded  by  the  three  first  Evangelists.  (Matt.  xiii. 
10-15  ;  Mark  iv.  11, 12  ;  Luke  viii.  9, 10.)  When  we  examine  the  words  themselves, 
we  find  them  in  St.  Mark  to  wear  their  strongest  and  severest  aspect.  There  and  in 
St.  Luke,  the  purpose  of  speaking  in  parables  is  said  to  be  that  (Jva,  which  can  be  no- 
thing else  than  tcXikw)  seeing  they  might  not  see  ;  while  in  St.  Matthew  he  speaks  in 
parables,  because  (on)  they  seeing  see  not.  In  Matthew  and  Mark  it  is  said  to  be  so 
done,  lest  (unTtore)  at  any  time  they  should  see  with  their  eyes  ;  while  in  Luke  this 
part  of  the  sentence  is  entirely  wanting.  The  attempt  has  been  made  to  evacuate  'va 
and  jjtfjTTOTt  of  their  strength,  these  being  clearly  the  key-words  ;  thus  i;'a=oV(,  and  fin- 
TT0Te=ctKOTi:,  "  if  perchance  ;"  to  justify  which  last  use,  reference  is  made  to  2  Tim.  ii. 
25,  [ifiTTOTc  SoJri  avToTs  b  Oco;  ncravoiav,  "  if  God  peradventure  will  give  them  repentance  ;" 
so  that  thus  we  should  get  back  to  the  old  meaning,  that  the  aim  of  his  teaching  by 
parables  was,  because  they  could  not  understand  in  any  other  way,  and  if  perchance 
the  Lord  would  give  them  repentance.  Now  there  is  no  question  that  such  might  be 
the  sense  given  to  jt{)TTOTt,  but  even  if  the  on  could  be  as  successfully  dealt  with,  whicii 
it  certainly  cannot,  there  is  still  the  passage  of  Isaiah  in  the  way.  Where  would  then 
be  the  fulfilment  of  his  prophecy?  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Prophet  there 
speaks  of  a  penal  blindness,  as  even  Gesenius  allows,  a  punishment  of  the  foregoing 
sins  of  his  people,  and  namely,  this  punishment,  that  they  should  be  unable  to  recog- 
nize what  was  divine  in  his  mission  and  character  ;  which  prophecy  had  its  ultimate 
and  crowning  fulfilment,  when  the  .Jewish  people  were  so  darkened  by  previous  carnal 
thoughts  and  works,  that  they  could  see  no  glory  and  no  beauty  in  Christ,  could  recog- 
nize nothing  of  divine  in  the  teaching  or  person  of  him  who  was  God  manifest  in  the 
flesh.  It  is  not  that  by  the  command,  "  Make  the  heart  of  this  people  fat,"  (Isai.  vi. 
10),  we  need  understand  as  though  any  peculiar  hardening  then  passed  upon  them,  but 


ON  TEACHING  BY  PARABLES.  17 

general  aim*  was  not  different  from  that  of  others  who  have  used  this 
method  of  teaching,  and  who  have  desired  thereby  to  make  clearer,-]- 
either  to  illustrate  or  to  prove,  the  truths  which  they  had  in  hand  : — I 
say  either  to  illustrate  or  to  prove  ;  for  the  parable,  or  other  analogy  to 
spiritual  truth  appropriated  from  the  world  of  nature  or  man,  is  not 
merely  illustration,  but  also  in  some  sort  proof.  It  is  not  merely  that 
these  analogies  assist  to  make  the  truth  intelligible,  or,  if  intelligible 
before,  present  it  more  vividly  to  the  mind,  which  is  all  that  some  will 
allow  them.:j:     Their  power  lies  deeper  than  this,  in  the  harmony  un- 

that  the  Lord  having  constituted  as  the  righteous  law  of  his  moral  government,  that 
sin  should  produce  darkness  of  heart  and  moral  insensibility,  declared  that  he  would 
allow  the  law  in  their  case  to  take  its  course,  and  so  also  with  this  latter  generation  ; 
even  as  that  law  is  declared  in  the  latter  half  of  Rom.  i.,  to  have  taken  its  course  with 
the  Gentile  world  ;  in  Augustine's  awful  words,  Deus  solus  magnus,  lege  infatigabili 
spargens  pcenales  csecitates  super  illicitas  cupidines  ;  who  says  also  in  another  place, 
Quorundam  peccatorum  perpetrandorum  facilitas,  poena  est  aliorum  praecedentium. 
The  fearful  curse  of  sin  is  that  it  ever  has  the  tendency  to  reproduce  itself,  that  he 
who  sows  in  sin  reaps  in  spiritual  darkness,  which  delivers  him  over  again  to  worse 
sin  ;  all  which  is  wonderfully  expressed  by  Shakspeare  ; — 

For  when  we  in  our  viciousness  grow  hard, 

Oh  misery  on't,  the  wise  Gods  seal  our  eyes, 

In  our  own  filth  drop  our  clear  judgments,  make  us 

Adore  our  errors,  laugh  at  us,  while  we  strut 

To  our  confusion. 
*  Bacon  has  noted  this  double  purpose  of  parables  {Be  Sap.  Vet.)  ;  Duplex  apud 
homines  repertus  est  atque  increbuit  parabolarum  usus,  atque  quod  magis  mirum  sit, 
ad  contraria  adhibetur.  Faciunt  enim  parabolas  ad  involucrum  et  velum,  faciunt  etiam 
ad  lumen  et  illustrationem.  See  also  De  Augtn.  Scient.,  1.  2.  c.  13  ;  and  the  re- 
markable passage  from  Stobaeus,  on  the  teaching  of  Pythagoras,  quoted  in  Potter's 
edit,  of  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  p.  676  ;  note. 

t  This  has  been  acknowledged  on  all  sides,  equally  by  profane  and  sacred  writ- 
ers ;  thus  Quintilian  (Inst.  viii.  3,  72.)  :  Praeclare  vero  ad  inferendam  rebus  lucem 
repertae  sunt  similitudines.  And  Seneca  styles  them,  adminicula  nostrae  imbecili- 
talis.  Again,  they  have  been  called.  Mediae  scientiam  inter  et  ignorantiam.  The 
author  of  the  treatise  ad  Herennium  :  Similitudo  sumitur  aut  ornandi  causa  aut  pro- 
bandi,  aut  apertius  docendi,  aut  ante  oculos  ponendi.  Tertullian.  (De  Eesur.  Car., 
c.  33),  expressly  denies  of  parables,  that  they  darken  the  light  of  the  Gospel  (obum- 
brant  Evangelii  lucem).  See  also  the  quotation  from  Chrysostom  in  Suicer's  Tkes. 
S.  V.  TTapalio\fj,  and  Basil  explains  it,  Xoyof  dxpiXtfioi  fieT  tiriKfivxpco};  fierpiai,  with  that 
moderate  degree  of  concealment  which  shall  provoke,  not  such  as  shall  repel  or  dis- 
appoint, inquiry.  The  Lord,  says  Chrysostom  (Horn.  69  in  Matth.),  spoke  in  para- 
bles, ipeOi^oyv  KaX  iityeipojv.,  ox  as  he  expresses  it  elsewhere  (De  Free,  Serm.  2),  that 
we  might  dive  down  into  the  deep  sea  of  spiritual  knowledge,  from  thence  to  fetch 
up  pearls  and  precious  stones. 

t  So  SteUini :  Ita  enim  fere  comparati  sumus,  ut  cum  impressionis  vivacitate  no- 
tionis  evidentiam  confundamus,  eaque  clarius  intelligere  nos  arbetremur,  quibus  imagi- 
nandi  perculsa  vis  acrius  est,  et  quae  novitate  aliqua  commendantur,  ea  stabiliora  sunt 
ad  diuturnitatem  memoriae,  neque  vetustate  ulla  consenescunt. 


18  ON  TEACHING  BY  PARABLES. 

consciously  felt  by  all  men,  and  by  deeper  minds  continually  recognized 
and  plainly  perceived,  between  the  natural  and  spiritual  worlds,  so  that 
analogies  from  the  first  are  felt  to  be  something  more  than  illustrations, 
happily  but  yet  arbitrarily  chosen.  They  are  arguments,  and  may  be 
alleged  as  witnesses ;  the  world  of  nature  being  throughout  a  witness 
for  the  world  of  spirit,  proceeding  from  the  same  hand,  growing  out  of 
the  same  root,  and  being  constituted  for  that  very  end.  All  lovers  of 
truth  readily  acknowledge  these  mysterious  harmonies,  and  the  force  of 
arguments  derived  from  them.  To  them  the  things  on  earth  are  copies 
of  the  things  in  heaven.  They  know  that  the  earthly  tabernacle  is 
made  after  the  pattern  of  things  seen  in  the  mount  (Exod.  xxv.  40; 
1  Chron.  xxviii.  11,  12;*  and  the  question  suggested  by  the  Angel 
in  Milton  is  often  forced  upon  their  meditations, — 

"  What  if  earth 
Be  but  the  shadow  of  heaven  and  things  therein 
Each  to  other  like,  more  than  on  earth  is  thought  ?"t 

For  it  is  a  great  misunderstanding  of  the  matter  to  think  of  these  as 
happily,  but  yet  arbitrarily,  chosen  illustrations,  taken  with  a  skilful 
selection  from  the  great  stock  and  storehouse  of  unappropriated  images  ; 
from  whence  it  would  have  been  possible  that  the  same  skill  might  have 
selected  others  as  good  or  nearly  as  good.  Rather  they  belong  to  one 
another,  the  type  and  the  thing  typified,  by  an  inward  necessity ;  they 
were  linked  together  long  before  by  the   law  of  a  secret  affinity.:}:     It 

*  See  Irenjeus,  Con.  Hair.,  1.  4,  c.  14,  §3. 

t  Many  are  the  sayings  of  a  like  kind  among  the  Jewish  Cabbalists.  Thus  in  the 
book  Sohar,  Quodcunque  in  terra  est,  id  etiam  in  ca?lo  est,  et  nulla  res  lam  exigua  est 
in  mundo,  quae  non  alii  similii,  quae  in  caelo  est,  correspondeat.  In  Gfrorer's  Vr- 
christenthum,v.  2,  p.  26-30,  and  Bahr's  Symb.  d.  Mos.  Cult.,  v.  1,  p.  109,  many 
like  passages  are  quoted.  No  one  was  fuller  of  this  than  Tertullian  :  see  his  magnifi- 
cent words  on  the  resurrection,  (Z)e  Res.  Cam.,  c.  12).  All  things  here,  he  says,  are 
witnesses  of  a  resurrection,  all  things  in  nature  are  prophetic  outlines  of  divine  opera- 
rations,  God  not  merely  speaking  parables,  but  doing  them,  (talia  divinarum  virium 
lineamenta,  non  minus  parabolis  operato  Deo  quam  locuto).  And  again,  De  Animd, 
c.  43,  the  activity  of  the  soul  in  sleep  is  for  him  at  once  an  argument  and  an  illustra- 
tion which  God  has  provided  us,  of  its  not  being  tied  to  the  body,  to  perish  with  it : 
Deus  ....  manum  porrigens  fidei,  facilius  adjuvanda;  per  imagines  et  paraboles,  sicut 
sermonum,  ita  et  rerum. 

t  Out  of  a  true  sense  of  this  has  grown  our  use  of  the  word  likely.  There  is  a 
confident  expectation  in  the  minds  of  men  of  the  reappearance  in  higher  spheres,  of  the 
same  laws  and  relations  wiiich  they  have  recognized  in  lower  ;  and  thus  that  which  is 
like  is  also  likely  or  probable.  Butler's  Analogy  is  just  the  unfolding,  as  he  himself 
declares  at  the  beginning,  in  one  particular  line  of  this  thought,  that  the  like  is  also  the 
likely. 


ON^TEACHING  BY  PARABLES.  jg 

is  not  an  happy  accident  which  has  yielded  so  wondrous  an  analogy  as 
that  of  husband  and  wife,  to  set  forth  the  mystery  of  Christ's  relation  to 
his  elect  Church.  There  is  far  more  in  it  than  this  :  the  earthly  rela- 
tion is  indeed  but  a  lower  form  of  the  heavenly,  on  which  it  rests,  and 
of  which  it  is  the  utterance.  When  Christ  spoke  to  Nicodemus  of  a 
new  birth,  it  was  not  merely  because  birth  into  this  natural  world  was 
the  most  suitable  figure  that  could  be  found  for  the  expression  of  that 
spiritual  act  which,  without  any  power  of  our  own,  is  accomplished 
upon  us  when  we  are  brought  into  God's  kingdom  ;  but  all  the  circum- 
stances of  this  natural  birth  had  been  pre-ordained  to  bear  the  burden  of 
so  great  a  mystery.  The  Lord  is  king,  not  borrowing  this  title  from  the 
kings  of  the  earth,  but  having  lent  his  own  title  to  them — and  not  the 
name  only,  but  so  ordering,  that  all  true  rule  and  government  upon 
earth,  with  its  righteous  laws,  its  stable  ordinances,  its  punishment  and 
its  grace,  its  majesty  and  its  terror,  should  tell  of  Him  and  of  his  king- 
dom which  ruleth  over  all — so  that  "  kingdom  of  God  "  is  not  in  fact  a 
figurative  expression,  but  most  literal :  it  is  rather  the  earthly  kingdoms 
and  the  earthly  kings  that  are  figures  and  shadows  of  the  true.  And 
as  in  the  world  of  man  and  human  relations,  so  also  is  it  in  the  world  of 
nature.  The  untended  soil  which  yields  thorns  and  briars  as  its  natu- 
ral harvest  is  a  permanent  type  and  enduring  parable  of  man's  heart, 
which  has  been  submitted  to  the  same  curse,  and  without  a  watchful 
spiritual  husbandry  will  as  surely  put  forth  its  briars  and  its  thorns. 
The  weeds  that  will  mingle  during  the  time  of  growth  with  the  corn, 
and  yet  are  separated  from  it  at  the  last,  tell  ever  one  and  the  same  tale 
of  the  present  admixture,  and  future  sundering  of  the  righteous  and  the 
wicked.  The  decaying  of  the  insignificant  unsightly  seed  in  the  earth, 
and  the  rising  up  out  of  that  decay  and  death,  of  the  graceful  stalk  and 
the  fruitful  ear,  contain  evermore  the  prophecy  of  the  final  resurrec- 
tion, even  as  this  is  itself  in  its  kind  a  resurrection, — the  same  process 
at  a  lower  stage, — the  same  power  putting  itself  forth  upon  meaner 
things. 

Of  course  it  will  be  always  possible  for  those  who  shrink  from  con- 
templating a  higher  world-order  than  that  imperfect  one  around  them, — 
and  this,  because  the  thought  of  such  would  rebuke  their  own  imper- 
fection and  littleness — who  shrink  too  from  a  witness  for  God  so  near 
them  as  even  that  imperfect  order  would  render — it  will  be  possible  for 
them  to  say  it  is  not  thus,  but  that  our  talk  of  heavenly  things  is  only  a 
transferring  of  earthly  images  and  relations  to  them  ; — that  earth  is  not 
a  shadow  of  heaven,  but  heaven,  such  at  least  as  we  conceive  it,  a  dream 
of  earth  ;  that  the  names  Father  and  Son  for  instance  (and  this  is  Arian- 
ism)  are  only  improperly  used  and  in  a  secondary  sense  when  applied  to 


20  ON  TEACHING  BY  PARABLES. 

Divine  Persons,  and  then  are  terms  so  encumbered  with  difficulties  and 
contradictions  that  they  had  better  not  be  used  at  all  ;  that  we  do  not 
find  and  recognize  heavenly  things  in  their  earthly  counterparts,  but  only 
dexterously  adapt  them.  This  denial  will  be  always  possible,  and  has 
a  deeper  root  than  that  it  can  be  met  with  argument ;  yet  the  lover  of  a 
truth  which  shall  be  loftier  than  himself  will  not  be  moved  from  his  faith 
that  however  man  may  be  the  measure  of  all  things  here,  yet  God  is 
the  measure  of  man, — that  the  same  Lord  who  sits  upon  his  throne  in 
heaven,  does  with  the  skirts  of  his  train  fill  his  temple  upon  earth — that 
these  characters  of  nature  which  everywhere  meet  his  eye  are  not  a 
common  but  a  sacred  writing — that  they  are  hieroglyphics  of  God  :  and 
he  counts  this  his  blessedness,  that  he  finds  himself  in  the  midst  of  such, 
and  because  in  the  midst  of  them,  therefore  never  without  admonish- 
ment and  teaching. 

For  such  is  in  truth  the  condition  of  man  :  around  him  is  a  sensuous 
world,  yet  not  one  which  need  bring  him  into  bondage  to  his  senses,  but 
so  framed  as,  if  he  will  use  it  aright,  continually  to  lift  him  above  itself 
— a  visible  world  to  make  known  the  invisible  things  of  God,  a  ladder 
leading  him  up  to  the  contemplation  of  heavenly  truth.  And  this  truth 
he  shall  encounter  and  make  his  own,  not  in  fleeing  from  his  fellows  and 
their  works  and  ways,  but  in  the  mart,  on  the  wayside,  in  the  field — 
not  by  stripping  himself  bare  of  all  relations,  but  rather  recognizing  these 
as  instruments  through  which  he  is  to  be  educated  into  the  knowledge 
of  higher  mysteries  ;  and  so  dealing  with  them  in  reverence,  seeking 
by  faithfulness  to  them  in  their  lower  forms  to  enter  into  their  yet  deeper 
significance — entertaining  them,  though  they  seem  but  common  guests, 
and  finding  that  he  has  unawares  entertained  Angels.  And  thus,  besides 
his  revelation  in  words,  God  has  another  and  an  elder,  and  one  indeed 
without  which  it  is  inconceivable  how  that  other  could  be  made,  for  from 
this  it  appropriates  all  its  signs  of  communication.  This  entire  moral 
and  visible  world  from  first  to  last,  with  its  kings  and  its  subjects,  its 
parents  and  its  children,  its  sun  and  its  moon,  its  sowing  and  its  harvest, 
its  light  and  its  darkness,  its  sleeping  and  its  waking,  its  birth  and  its 
death,  is  from  beginning  to  end  a  mighty  parable,  a  great  teaching  of 
supersensuous  truth,  a  help  at  once  to  our  faith  and  to  our  understand- 
ing. 

It  is  true  that  men  are  ever  in  danger  of  losing  "  the  key  of  know, 
ledge"  which  should  open  to  them  the  portals  of  tliis  palace  :  and  then 
instead  of  a  prince  in  a  world  of  wonder  that  is  serving  him,  man  moves 
in  the  midst  of  this  world,  alternately  its  taskmaster  and  its  drudge. 
Such  we  see  him  to  become  at  the  two  poles  of  savage  and  falsely  cul- 
tivated life — his  inner  eye  darkened,  so  that  he  sees  nothing,  his  inner 


ON  TEACHING  BY  PARABLES.  21 

ear  heavy,  so  that  there  come  no  voices  from  nature  unto  him  :  and 
indeed  in  all,  save  only  in  the  one  Man,  there  is  more  or  less  of  the 
dulled  ear,  and  the  filmed  eye.  There  is  none  to  vi^hom  nature  tells  out 
all  that  she  has  tojell,  and  as  constantly  as  she  would  be  willing  to  tell 
it.  Now  the  whole  of  Scripture,  with  its  ever- recurring  use  of  figura- 
tive language,  is  a  re-awakening  of  man  to  the  mystery  of  nature,  a 
giving  back  to  him  the  key  of  knowledge,  the  true  signatura  rerum  : 
and  this  comes  out,  as  we  might  expect,  in  its  highest  form,  but  by  no 
means  exclusively,  in  those  which  by  pre-eminence  we  call  the  parables. 
They  have  this  point  of  likeness  with  the  miracles,  that  those  too  were 
a  calling  heed  to  powers  which  were  daily  going  forward  in  the  midst  of 
men,  but  which,  by  their  frequency  and  their  orderly  repetition,  that 
ought  to  have  kindled  the  more  admiration,  had  become  wonder-works 
no  more,  had  lost  the  power  of  exciting  attention,  until  men  had  need  to 
be  startled  anew  to  the  contemplation  of  the  energies  which  were  ever 
working  among  them.  In  like  manner  the  parables  were  a  calling  of 
attention  to  the  spiritual  facts  which  underlie  all  processes  of  nature, 
all  institutions  of  human  society,  and  which,  though  unseen,  are  the 
true  ground  and  support  of  these.  Christ  moved  in  the  midst  of  what 
seemed  to  the  eye  of  sense  an  old  and  worn-out  world,  and  it  evidently 
became  new  at  his  touch  ;  for  it  told  to  man  now  the  inmost  secrets  of 
his  being  :  he  found  that  it  answered  with  strange  and  marvellous  cor- 
respondencies to  another  world  within  him, — that  oftentimes  it  helped  to 
the  birth  great  thoughts  of  his  heart,  which  before  were  helplessly  strug- 
gling to  be  born, — that  of  these  two  worlds,  without  him  and  within,  each 
threw  a  light  and  a  glory  on  the  other. 

For  on  this  rests  the  possibility  of  a  real  teaching  by  parables,  such 
a  teaching  as,  resting  upon  a  substantial  gi'ound,  shall  not  be  a  mere 
building  on  the  air,  or  painting  on  a  cloud, — that  the  world  around  us  is 
a  divine  world,  that  it  is  God's  world,  the  world  of  the  same  God  who  is 
teaching  and  leading  us  into  spiritual  truth  ;  that  the  horrible  dream 
of  Gnostic  and  Manichsean,  who  would  set  a  great  gulf  between  the  worlds 
of  nature  and  of  grace,  seeing  this  from  a  good,  but  that  from  an  im- 
perfect or  an  evil  power,  is  a  lie  ;  that  being  originally  God's,  it  is  a 
sharer  in  his  great  redemption.  And  yet  this  redeemed  world,  like 
man,  is  in  part  redeemed  only  in  hope  :  it  is  not,  that  is,  in  the  present 
possession,  but  only  in  the  assured  certainty,  of  a  complete  deliverance. 
For  this  too  we  must  not  leave  out  of  sight,  that  nature,  in  its  present 
state,  like  man  himself,  contains  but  a  prophecy  of  its  coming  glory  ; — 
it  "  groaneth  and  travaileth  ;"  it  cannot  tell  out  all  its  secrets;  it  has 
a  presentiment  of  something,  which  it  is  not  yet,  but  which  hereafter  it 
shall  be.     It  too  is  suffering  under  our  curse  :  yet  even  thus,  in  its  very 


22  ON  TEACHING  BY  PARABLES. 

imperfection  wonderfully  serving  us,  since  tlius  it  has  apter  signs  and 
more  fitting  symbols  to  declare  to  us  our  disease  and  our  misery,  and 
the  processes  of  their  healing  and  removing  ; — symbols  not  merely  of 
God's  grace  and  power,  but  also  of  man's  sins  and  wretchedness  :  it  has 
its  sores  and  its  wounds,  its  storms  and  its  wildern3sses,  its  lion  and  its 
adder,  by  these  interpreting  to  us  death^all  that  leads  to  death,  no  less 
than  by  its  more  beneficent  workings  life  and  all  that  tends  to  the  re- 
storing and  maintaining  of  life. 

But  while  thus  it  has  this  merciful  adaptation  to  our  needs,  not  the 
less  does  it,  in  this  its  fallen  estate,  come  short  of  its  full  purpose  and 
meaning  :  it  fails  in  part  to  witness  for  a  divine  order,  as  the  philoso- 
phic  poet,  whose  eye  was  mainly  directed  to  this,  its  disorder  and  defi- 
ciency, exclaimed, 

tantti  Stat  praedita  culpS  : 

it  does  not  give  always  a  clear  witness,  nor  speak  out  in  distinct  accents, 
of  God's  truth  and  love.  Of  these  it  is  oftentimes  the  inadequate  ex- 
pression— yea,  sometimes  seems  not  to  declare  them  at  all,  but  rather  in 
volcano  and  in  earthquake,  in  ravenous  beasts,  and  in  poisonous  herbs,  to 
tell  of  strife  and  discord  and  disharmony,  and  all  the  woful  consequences 
of  the  fall.  But  one  day  it  will  be  otherwise  :  one  day  it  will  be  trans- 
lucent with  the  divine  Idea  which  it  embodies,  and  which  even  now, 
despite  these  dark  spots,  shines  through  it  so  wondrously.  For  no  doubt 
the  end  and  consummation  will  be,  not  the  abolition  of  this  nature,  but 
the  glorifying  of  it, — that  which  is  now  nature  {iiatura),  always,  as  the 
word  expresses  it,  striving  and  struggling  to  the  birth,  will  then  be 
indeed  born.  The  new  creation  will  be  as  the  glorious  child  born  out 
of  the  world-long  throes  and  anguish  of  the  old.  It  will  be  as  the  snake 
casting  its  wrinkled  and  winter  skin  ;  the  old  world  not  abolished,  but 
putting  off  its  soiled  work-day  garments,  and  putting  on  its  holiday  ap- 
parel for  the  great  Sabbath  which  shall  have  arrived  at  last.  Then, 
when  it  too  shall  have  put  off  its  bondage  of  corruption,  shall  be  deli- 
vered from  whatever  is  now  overlaying  it,  all  that  it  has  at  present  of 
dim  and  contradictory  and  perplexing  shall  disappear.  This  nature, 
too,  shall  be  a  mirror  in  which  God  will  perfectly  glass  himself,  for  it 
shall  tell  of  nothing  but  the  marvels  of  his  wisdom  and  power  and  love. 
But  at  present,  while  this  natural  world,  through  its  share  in  man's 
fall,  has  won  in  fitness  for  the  expression  of  the  sadder  side  of  man's 
condition,  the  imperfection  and  evil  that  cling  to  him  and  beset  him,  it 
has  in  some  measure  lost  in  fitness  for  the  expressing  of  the  higher.  It 
possesses  the  best,  yet  oftentimes  inadequate,  helps  for  this.  These 
human  relationships,  and  this  whole  constitution  of  things  earthly,  share 


ON  TEACHING  B\^  PARABLES.  23 

in  the  shortcoming  that  cleaves  to  all  which  is  of  the  earth.  Obnoxious 
to  change,  tainted  with  sin,  shut  in  within  brief  limits  by  decay  and 
death,  they  are  often  weak  and  temporary,  when  they  have  to  set  forth 
things  strong  and  eternal.  A  sinful  element  is  evidently  mingled  with 
them,  while  they  yet  appear  as  symbols  of  what  is  entirely  pure  and 
heavenly.  They  break  down  under  the  weight  that  is  laid  upon  them. 
The  father  chastens  after  his  own  pleasure,  instead  of  wholly  for  the 
child's  profit ;  in  this  unlike  that  heavenly  Father,  whose  character 
he  is  to  set  forth.  The  seed  which  is  to  set  forth  the  word  of  God,  that 
Word  which  liveth  and  abideth  for  ever,  itself  decays  and  perishes  at 
last.  Festivals,  so  frequently  the  image  of  the  pure  joy  of  the  kingdom, 
of  the  communion  of  the  faithful  with  their  Lord  and  with  one  another, 
will  often,  when  here  celebrated,  be  mixed  up  with  much  that  is  carnal, 
and  they  come  to  their  close  in  a  few  hours.  There  is  something 
exactly  analogous  to  all  this  in  the  typical  or  parabolical  personages  of 
Scripture — the  men  that  are  to  set  forth  the  Divine  Man.  Through 
their  sins,  through  their  infirmities,  yea,  through  the  necessary  limita- 
tions of  their  earthly  condition,  they  are  unable  to  carry  the  corre- 
spondencies completely  out.  Sooner  or  later  they  break  down  ;  and 
very  often  even  the  part  which  they  do  sustain,  they  sustain  it  not  for  long. 
Thus,  for  instance,  few  would  deny  the  typical  character  of  Solomon. 
His  kingdom  of  peace,  the  splendour  of  his  reign,  his  wisdom,  the  tem- 
ple which  he  reared,  all  point  to  a  greater  whom  he  foreshewed.  Yet 
this  gorgeous  forecasting  of  the  coming  glory  is  vouchsafed  to  us  only 
for  an  instant ;  it  is  but  a  glimpse  of  it  we  catch.  Even  before  his 
reign  is  done,  all  is  beginning  to  dislimn  again,  to  lose  the  distinctness 
of  its  outline,  the  brightness  of  its  colouring.  His  wisdom  is  darkened, 
the  perfect  peace  of  his  land  is  no  more  ;  and  the  gloom  on  every  side 
encroaching  warns  us  that  this  is  but  the  image,  not  the  very  substance, 
of  the  things. 

Again  we  see  some  men,  in  whom  there  is  but  a  single  point  in  their 
history  which  brings  them  into  typical  relation  with  Christ ;  such  was 
Jonah,  the  type  of  the  Resurrection  :  or  persons  whose  lives  at  one  mo- 
ment and  another  seem  suddenly  to  stand  out  as  symbolic ;  but  then 
sink  back  so  far  that  we  almost  doubt  whether  we  may  dare  to  consider 
them  as  such  at  all,  and  in  whose  case  the  attempt  to  carry  out  the 
resemblance  into  greater  detail  wonld  involve  in  infinite  embarrasment. 
Samson  will  at  once  suggest  himself  as  one  of  those.  It  is  scarcely 
possible  to  believe  that  something  more  was  not  meant  than  is  contained 
in  the  letter  when  out  of  the  eater  he  brought  forth  meat,  and  out  of  the 
strong,  sweetness,  (Judg.  xiv.  14,)  or  when  he  wrought  a  mightier  de- 
liverance for  Israel  through  his  death  than  he  had  wrought  in  his  life. 


24  ON  TEACHING  BY  PARABLES. 

(Judg.  xvi.  30.)  Yet  we  hesitate  how  far  we  may  proceed.  And  so  it 
is  in  every  case,  for  sonnewhere  or  other  every  man  is  a  liar :  he  is 
false,  that  is,  to  the  divine  idea,  which  he  was  meant  to  embody,  and 
fails  to  bring  it  out  in  all  the  fulness  of  its  perfection.  So  that  of  the 
truths  of  God  in  the  language  of  men,  (which  language  of  course  in- 
cludes man's  acts  as  well  as  his  words,)  of  these  sons  of  heaven  married 
to  the  daughters  of  earth,  it  may  truly  be  said,  "  we  have  this  treasure 
in  earthen  vessels."  And  it  must  only  be  looked  for,  that  somewhere 
or  other  the  earthen  vessel  will  appear,  that  the  imperfection  which 
cleaves  to  our  forms  of  utterance,  to  men's  words  and  to  their  works, 
will  make  itself  felt  either  in  the  misapprehensions  of  those  to  whom  the 
language  is  addressed  (as  John  iii.  11),  or  by  the  language  itself, 
though  the  best  that  human  speech  could  supply, — by  the  men  them- 
selves, though  the  noblest,  it  may  be,  of  their  age  and  race, — yet 
failing  to  set  forth  the  divine  truth  in  all  its  fulness  and  complete- 
ness.* 

No  doubt  it  was  a  feeling,  working  more  or  less  consciously,  of  the 
dangers  and  drawbacks  that  attend  all  our  means  of  communication,  a 
desire  also  to  see  eye  to  eye,  or,  as  St.  Paul  terms  it,  face  to  face,f 

*  It  is  now  rather  U  jiipovi,  h  alviyjiari^  (5('  ccStrTpov,  (1  Cor.  xiii.  9,  12),  h  -napoifiiati, 
(John  xvi.  25).  Cf.  Bernard,  In  Cant ,  Serm.  31.  8.  A  Persian  mystical  poet  has 
caught  this  tnith,  which  he  has  finely  expressed.  (See  Tholuck's  ElUthensamm.  aus 
d.  Morgenl.  Mystik,  p.  215). 

Die  Sinnenwelt  ein  Schatte  ist  der  Geistwelt, 

Herab  von  dieser  jener  Nahrunsgmilch  quellt. 

GefQhle  sind  gefangene  Monarchen, 

Die  in  der  Worte  Kerker  sich  verbargen. 

Tritt  das  Unendliche  in's  Herz  des  Weisen, 

Muss  flags  hinab  er  zum  Verstande  reisen. 

Der  muss  die  Schattenbilder  ihm  gewahren, 

Damit  er  konn'  Unendliches  erklaren. 

Doch  nimmer  ist  das  Abbild  je  volikommen, 

Nur  Selbstverstandniss  kann  dir  wahrhaft  frommen. 

Denn  ziehst  ausjedem  Bild  du  Consequenzen, 

Musst  hier  du  Vieles  wegthun,  dort  erganzen. 
f  John  Smith  {Select  Disc,  p.  159),  observes  that  the  later  Platonists  had  three 
terms  to  distinguish  the  different  degrees  of  divine  knowledge,  icar' tTrior^/ii/i/,  Kara  v6rjaiv 
and  Kara  Tapovclav.  If  we  assumed  these  into  Christian  theology, — and  they  very 
nearly  agree  with  the  threefold  division  of  St.  Bernard  (Z?e  Consid.,  \.  5,  c.  3),  the 
opinio,  the  fides,  and  the  intellectus  (intuition), — we  might  say  of  the  first,  that  it  is 
common  to  all  men,  being  merely  notional,  knowing  about  God  :  the  second  is  the 
privilege  of  the  faithful  now,  the  knowing  God  ;  the  third,  the  airofiircia  of  the  same 
school,  the  Arcanum  facierum  of  the  Jewish  doctors,  will  be  their  possession  in  the 
world  to  come,  the  seeing  God,  the  reciprocity  of  which  is  finally  indicated   by  Augus- 


ON  TEACHING  BY  PARABLES.  25 

(1  Cor.  xiii.  12,)  which  caused  the  mystics  to  press  with  such  earnest- 
ness and  frequency  that  we  should  seek  to  abstract  ourselves  from  all 
images  of  things  ;  that  to  raise  ourselves  to  the  contemplation  of  pure 
and  naked  truth  is  the  height  of  spiritual  attainment,  towards  which  we 
should  continually  be  struggling.*  But  in  requiring  this  as  a  test 
and  proof  of  spiritual  progress,  in  setting  it  as  the  mark  towards  which 
men  should  strive,  they  were  not  merely  laying  unnecessary  burdens 
on  men's  backs,  but  actually  leading  astray.  For  whether  one  shall 
separate  in  his  own  consciousness  the  form  from  the  essence, — whether 
the  images  which  he  uses  shall  be  to  him  more  or  less  conscious  sym- 
bols,— does  not  depend  on  his  greater  or  less  advance  in  spiritual  know- 
ledge, but  on  causes  which  may  or  may  not  accompany  religious  growth, 
and  mainly  on  this  one, — whether  he  has  been  accustomed  to  think 
upon  his  thoughts,  to  reflect  upon  the  wonderful  instrument  which  in 
language  he  is  using.  One  who  possesses  the  truth  only  as  it  is  incor- 
porated in  the  symbol,  may  yet  have  a  far  stronger  hold  upon  it — may 
be  influenced  by  it  far  more  mightily — may  far  more  really  be  nour- 
ished by  it  than  another,  who,  according  to  the  mystic  view,  would  be 
in  a  higher  and  more  advanced  state.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that  for  them 
who  have  not  merely  to  live  upon  the  truth  themselves,  but  to  guard  it 
for  others, — not  merely  to  drink  of  the  streams  of  divine  knowledge,  but 
to  see  that  the  waters  of  its  well-heads  be  not  troubled  for  their  brethren 
— for  them  it  is  well  that  they  should  be  conscious,  and  the  more  con- 
scious the  better,  of  the  wonderful  thing  which  language  is, — of  the 
power  and  mystery,  of  the  truth  and  falsehood,  of  words;  and  as  a  part 
of  this  acquaintance,  that  the  truth,  and  that  which  is  the  vehicle  of  the 
truth,  should  for  them  be  separable ;  but  then  it  should  be  even  for 
them  as  soul  and  body,  not  as  kernel  and  husk.  This  last  comparison 
has  been  often  used,  but  when  pushed  far,  may  be  pushed  into  an  error. 
It  has  been  said  that,  as  when  the  seed  is  cast  into  the  ground,  after  a 

tine,  when  he  terms  it,  Videre  Videntem.  It  was  this,  according  to  many  of  the  Jew- 
ish interpreters,  which  Moses  craved  when  he  said,  "  I  beseech  Thee,  show  me  thy 
glory,"  but  which  was  denied  him,  as  being  impossible  for  man  in  this  present  life  ; 
"  Thou  canst  not  see  my  face,  for  there  shall  no  man  see  me,  and  live."  (Exod.  xxxiii. 
18-20).  Yet  he  too,  they  say,  came  nearer  to  this  than  any  other  of  the  Lord's  pro- 
phets. (See  Meuschen's  N.  T.  ex  Talm.  illustr.,  p.  373.)  It  is  a  striking  Moham- 
medan tradition,  according  to  which  the  Lord  convinced  Moses  how  fearful  a  thing  it 
would  be  to  comply  with  his  request,  "  Show  me  thy  glory," — by  suffering  a  spark  of 
that  glory,  the  fulness  of  which  Moses  had  craved  to  see,  to  fall  upon  a  mountain, 
which  instantly  burst  into  a  thousand  pieces. 

*  Thauler,  for  instance,  is  continually  urging — Ut  ab  omnibus  imaginibus  denud- 
emur  et  exuamur. — Fenelon  the  same  ;  and  indeed  all  the  mystics,  from  Dionysius 
downward,  agree  in  this. 

3 


26  ON  TEACHING  BY  PARABLES. 

time  the  kernel  disengages  itself  from  the  outer  coating,  and  alone 
remains  and  fructifies,  while  the  husk  decays  and  perishes  ;  so  in  the 
seed  of  God's  word  deposited  in  man's  heart,  the  sensible  form  must  fall 
off,  that  the  inner  germ  releasing  itself  may  germinate.  But  the  image, 
urged  thus  far,  does  not  aptly  set  forth  the  truth — will  lead  in  the  end 
to  a  Quaker-like  contempt  of  the  written  word,  under  pretence  of  having 
the  inner  life.  The  outer  covering  is  not  to  fall  off  and  perish,  but  to 
become  glorified,  being  taken  up  by,  and  made  translucent  with,  the 
spirit  that  is  within.  Man  is  body  and  soul,  and  being  so,  the  truth  has 
for  him  need  of  a  body  and  soul  likewise:  it  is  well  that  he  should 
know  what  is  body  and  what  is  soul,  but  not  that  he  should  seek  to  kill 
the  body,  that  he  may  get  at  the  soul. 

Thus  it  was  provided  for  us  by  a  wisdom  higher  than  our  own,  and 
all  our  attempts  to  disengage  ourselves  wholly  from  sensuous  images 
must  always  in  the  end  be  unsuccessful.  It  will  be  only  a  changing  of 
our  images,  and  that  for  the  worse  ;  a  giving  up  of  living  realities  which 
truly  stir  the  heart,  and  getting  dead  metaphysical  abstractions  in  their 
room.  The  aim  of  the  teacher,  who  would  find  his  way  to  the  hearts 
and  understandings  of  his  hearers,  will  never  be  to  keep  down  the  para- 
bolical element  in  his  teaching,  but  rather  to  make  as  much  and  as  fre- 
quent use  of  it  as  he  can.  And  to  do  this  effectually  will  need  a  fresh 
^ffort  of  his  own  ;  for  while  all  language  is,  and  of  necessity  must  be, 
more  or  less  figurative,  yet  long  familiar  use  has  worn  out  the  freshness 
of  the  stamp  (who,  for  example,  that  speaks  of  msuZ^iTzg',  retains  the  lively 
image  of  a  leaping  on  the  prostrate  body  of  a  foe)  ;  so  that  to  create  a 
powerful  impression,  language  must  be  recalled,  minted  and  issued  anew? 
cast  into  novel  forms  as  was  done  by  him,  of  whom  it  is  said,  that  with- 
out a  parable  {nagu^olr]  in  its  widest  sense)  spake  he  nothing  to  his 
hearers  ;  that  is,  he  gave  no  doctrine  in  an  abstract  form,  no  skeletons 
of  truth,  but  all  clothed,  as  it  were,  with  flesh  and  blood.  He  acted  him- 
self as  he  declared  to  his  apostles  they  must  act,  if  they  would  be  scribes 
instructed  unto  the  kingdom,  and  able  to  instruct  others ;  (Matt.  xiii. 
52;)  he  brought  forth  out  of  his  treasure  things  new  and  old  :  by  the 
help  of  the  old  he  made  intelligible  the  new  ;  by  the  aid  of  the  familiar 
he  introduced  them  to  that  which  was  strange  ;  from  the  known  he  pass- 
ed more  easily  to  the  unknown.  And  in  his  own  manner  of  teaching, 
and  in  his  instructions  to  his  apostles,  he  has  given  us  the  secret  of  all 
effectual  teaching, — of  all  speaking  which  shall  leave  behind  it,  as  was 
said  of  one  man's  eloquence,  stings  in  the  minds  and  memories  of  the 
hearers.     There  is  a  natural  delight  *  which  the  mind  has  in  this  manner 

*  This  delight  has  indeed  impressed  itself  upon  our  language  itself.  To  like  a 
thing  is  to  compare  it  to  some  other  thing  which  we  have  already  before  our  natural, 


ON  TEACHING  BY  PARABLES.  27 

of  teaching,  appealing  as  it  does,  not  to  the  understanding  only,  but  to 
the  feelings,  to  the  imagination,  and  in  short  to  the  whole  man  •  calling  as 
it  does  the  whole  man  with  all  his  powers  and  faculties  into  pleasurable 
activity  :  and  things  thus  learned  with  delight  are  those  longest  remem- 
bered .  * 

Had  our  Lord  spoken  naked  spiritual  truth,  how  many  of  his  words, 
partly  from  his  hearers'  lack  of  interest  in  them,  partly  from  their  lack 
of  insight,  would  have  passed  away  from  their  hearts  and  memories,  leav- 
ing scarcely  a  trace  behind  them.f  But  being  imparted  to  them  in  this 
form,  under  some  lively  image,  in  some  short  and  perhaps  seemingly 
paradoxical  sentence,  or  in  some  brief  but  interesting  narrative,  they 
awakened  attention,  excited  inquiry,  and  even  if  the  truth  did  not  at  the 
moment,  by  the  help  of  the  illustration  used,  find  an  entrance  into  the 
mind,  yet  the  words  must  thus  often  have  fixed  themselves  in  their  mem- 
ories and  remained  by  them.:}:  And  here  the  comparison  of  the  seed  is 
appropriate,  of  which  the  shell  should  guard  the  life  of  the  inner  germ, 
till  that  should  be  ready  to  unfold  itself — till  there  should  be  a  soil  pre- 
pared for  it,  in  which  it  could  take  root  and  find  nourishment  suitable  to 
its  needs.  His  words  laid  up  in  the  memory  were  to  many  that  heard 
him  like  the  money  of  another  country,  unavailable  it  might  be  for  pre- 
sent use, — of  which  they  knew  not  the  value,  and  only  dimly  knew  that 
it  had  a  value,  but  which  yet  was  ready  in  their  hand,  when  they  reached 
that  land  and  were  naturalized  in  it.  When  the  Spirit  came  and  brought 
all  things  to  their  remembrance,  then  he  filled  all  the  outlines  of  truth 
which  they  before  possessed  with  its  substance,  quickened  all  its  forms 
with  the  power  and  spirit  of  life.  Not  perhaps  at  once,  but  gradually, 
the  meanings  of  what  they  had  heard  unfolded  themselves  to  them. 
Small  to  the  small,  they  grew  with  their  growth.  And  thus  must  it  ever 
be  with  all  true  knowledge,  which  is  not  the  communication  of  informa- 
tion, the  transference  of  a  dead  sum  or  capital  of  facts  or  theories  from 
one  mind  to  another,  but  the  opening  of  living  fountains  within  the  heart, 

or  our  mind's,  eye :  and  the  pleasurable  enaction  always  arising  from  this  process  of 
comparison  has  caused  us  to  use  the  word  in  a  far  wider  sense  than  that  which  be- 
longed to  it  at  the  first.  That  we  like  what  is  like  is  the  explanation  of  the  pleasure  which 
rhymes  give  us. 

*  Thus  Jerome  {Comm.  in  Matt.,  in  loc.)  describes  the  purpose  of  the  parable : 
Ut  quod  per  simplex  prseceptum  teneri  ab  auditoribus  non  potest,  per  similitudinem  ex- 
emplaque  teneatur. 

t  It  was  no  doubt  from  a  deep  feeling  of  this  that  the  Jewish  Cabbalists  affirmed. 
Lumen  supernum  nunquam  descendit  sine  indumento  ;  with  which  agrees  the  saying 
of  the  pseudo-Dionysius,  so  often  quoted  by  the  schoolmen,  Impossibile  est  nobis  aliter 
lucere  divinum  radium  nisi  varietate  sacrorum  velaminum  circumvelatum. 

\  Bernard:  An  non  expedit  tenere  vel  involutum,  quod  nudum  non  capis? 


28  ON  TEACHING  BY  PARABLES. 

the  scattering  of  sparks  which  shall  kindle  where  they  fall,  the  planting 
seeds  of  truth,  which  shall  take  root  in  the  new  soil  where  they  are  cast, 
and  striking  their  roots  downward,  and  sending  their  branches  upward, 
shall  grow  up  into  goodly  trees. 

Nor  is  it  unworthy  of  remark,  when  we  are  estimating  the  extent  of 
the    parabolic   element    in    Scripture,   how  much  besides  the   spoken, 
there  is  there  of  acted,  parable.     In  addition  to  those  which,  by  a  more 
especial  right,  we  separate  off,  and  call  by  that  name,  every  type  is  a 
rea/ parable.     The  whole  Levitical  constitution,  with  its  outer  court,  its 
holy,  its  holiest  of  all,  its  high  priest,  its  sacrifices,  and  all  its  ordinan- 
ces, is  such,  and  is  declared  to  be  such  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
(ix.  9.)     The  wanderings  of  the  children  of  Israel  have  ever  been  re- 
garded as  a  parable  of  the  spiritual  life.      In  like  manner  we  have  par- 
abolic persons,  who  are  to  teach  us  not   merely  by  what  simply  in  their 
own  characters  they  did,  but  as  they  represented  One  higher  and  greater  ; 
men  whose  actions  and  whose  sufferings  obtain  a  new  significance,  inas- 
much as  they  were  in  these  drawing  lines   quite  unconsciously  them- 
selves, which  another  should  hereafter  fill  up  ;  as  Abraham  when  he  cast 
out  the  bondwoman  and  her  son,  (Gal.  iv.  30,)  Jonah  in  the  whale's  bel- 
ly, David    in   his  hour  of  peril  or  of  agony.     (Ps.   xxii.)     And   in  a 
narrower  circle,  without  touching  on  the  central  fact  and  Person  in  the 
kingdom  of  God,  how  often  has  he  chosen  that  his  servants  should  teach 
by  an  acted   parable  rather  than  by  any  other  means,  and  this  because 
there  was  no  other  that  would  make  so  deep  and   so  lasting  an  impres- 
sion.    Thus  Jeremiah  is  to  break  in  pieces  a  potter's  vessel,  that  he  may 
foretell  the  complete  destruction  of  his  people  ;  (xix.  1-11 ;)  he  wears 
a   yoke  that  he   may    be  himself  a  prophecy  and  a  parable  of  their  ap- 
proaching bondage  ;  (xxvii.  2  ;  xxviii.  10  ;)  he  redeems  a  field  in  pledge 
of  a  redemption   that  shall  yet  be  of  all   the   land,     (xxxii.  6-15.)     It 
will  at  once  be  seen  that  these  examples  might  be  infinitely  multiplied. 
And  as  God  will  have  them  by  these  signs  to  teach  others,  he  continually 
teaches  them  also  by  the  same.     It  is  not  his  word  only  that  comes  to  his 
prophets,  but  the  great  truths  of  his  kingdom  pass  before  their  eyes  in- 
corporated in  symbols,  addressing  themselves  first  to  the  spiritual  eye, 
and  only  through  that  to  the  spiritual  ear.     They  are  indeed  and  emi- 
nently Seers.     Ezekiel  and  Zechariah  will  at  once  suggest  themselves, 
as  those  of  whom,  more  than,  perhaps,  any  others,  this  was  true.     And 
in  the  New  Testament  we  have  a  great  example  of  the  same  teaching  in 
St.  Peter's  vision,  (Acts  x.  9-16,)  and  throughout  all  the  visions  of  the 
Apocalypse.  Nay,  we  might  venture  to  affirm  that  so  it  was  with  the  high- 
est and  greatest  truth  of  all,  that  which  includes  all  others — the  manifes- 
tation of  God  in  the  flesh.  This,  inasmuch  as  it  was  a  making  intelligible 


ON  TEACHING  BY  PARABLES.  29 

of  the  otherwise  unintelligible  ;  a  making  visible  the  invisible  ;  a  teaching 
not  by  doctrine,  but  by  the  embodied  doctrine  of  a  divine  life,  was  the 
highest  and  most  glorious  of  all  parables.* 

With  regard  to  the  record  which  we  have  of  the  Lord's  parables, 
they  are  found,  as  is  well  known,  only  in  the  three  first  Gospels  :  that 
by  St.  John  containing  allegories,  as  of  the  Good  Shepherd,  (x.  1,)  the 
True  Vine,  (xv.  1,)  but  no  parables  strictly  so  called.  Of  the  other 
three,  that  of  St.  Matthew  was  originally  written  for  Jewish  readers, 
and  mainly  for  the  Jews  of  Palestine  ;  its  leading  purpose  being  to  show 
that  Jesus  was  the  Christ,  the  promised  Messiah,  the  expected  King  of 
the  Jews — the  Son  of  David — the  Son  of  Abraham  ; — that  in  him  the 
prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament  found  their  fulfilment.  The  theocratic 
spirit  of  his  Gospel  does  not  fail  to  appear  in  the  parables  which  he  has 
recorded  ;  they  are  concerning  the  kingdom, — being  commonly  the  de- 
claration of  things  whereunto  "  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  likened," — a 
form  which  never  once  finds  place  in  St.  Luke.  The  same  theocratic 
purpose  displays  itself  in  the  form  in  which  the  Marriage  of  the  King's 
Son  appears  in  his  Gospel,  compared  with  the  parallel  narration  in 
Luke ;  in  the  last,  it  is  only  a  man  who  makes  a  great  supper, — while, 
in  Matthew,  it  is  a  king,  and  the  supper  a  marriage-supper,  and  that  for 
his  son. 

The  main  purpose  which  St.  Luke  had  before  him  in  writing  his 
Gospel  was  to  show,  not  that  Jesus  was  tlie  King  of  the  Jews,  but  the 
Saviour  of  the  woi'ld  ;  and  therefore  he  traces  our  Lord's  descent,  not 
merely  from  David,  the  great  type  of  the  theocratic  king,  nor  from 
Abraham,  the  head  of  the  Jewish  nation,  but  from  Adam,  the  father  of 
mankind.  He,  the  chosen  companion  of  the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles, 
wrote  his  Gospel  originally  for  Gentile  readers,  so  that  while  St.  Mat- 
thew only  records  the  sending  out  of  the  twelve  apostles,  corresponding 
to  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel,  he  relates  the  mission  of  the  seventy,  an- 
swering to  the  (supposed)  seventy  nations  into  which  the  world  at  Babel 
was  divided.  He,  as  writing  for  heathens  who  had  so  widely  departed 
from  God,  has  been  most  careful  to  record  the  Lord's  declarations  con- 
cerning the  free  mercy  of  God — his  declarations  that  there  is  no  depar- 
ture from  God  so  wide  as  to  preclude  a  return.  The  leading  idea  of  St. 
Luke's  Gospel  seems  to  have  guided  him  in  the  parables  which  he  re- 
cords. In  this  view,  the  three  at  chapter  xv.  are  especially  character- 
istic of  his  aim,  and  more  particularly  the  last,  that  of  the  Prodigal  Son, 

*  See  a  few  words  on  this  in  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas,  c.  5,  and  in  Clem.  Alex. 
(Strom.,  1.  6,  Potter's  Ed.,  p.  803),  he  begins,  Ilaoa/JoXiKoj  y"?  o  x"'P""''^'iP  ^^'^PX'^  '■'^^' 
ypo^wi'  ■   SiOTt  Kal  h  KCpiOf,  ovK  ojv  xoc^iKOf  e!i  dvOponrovs  rjXdev, 


30  ON  THE  INTERPRETATION 

and  not  less  so  that  of  Dives  and  Lazarus,  if,  as  Augustine,  Theophylact, 
and  some  later  commentators  have  suggested,  we  may  take  Dives  to  sig- 
nify the  Jews,  richly  abounding  with  all  blessings  of  the  knowledge  of 
God,  and  glorifying  themselves  in  those  blessings,  while  Lazarus,  or  the 
Gentile,  lay  despised  at  their  door,  a  heap  of  neglected  and  putrifying 
sores.  Again,  the  fact  that  it  was  a  Samaritan  who  showed  kindness  to 
the  poor  wounded  man,  (Luke  x.  30,)  would  seem  also  to  have  been  re- 
corded not  without  an  especial  aim,  to  be  traced  up  to  the  same  leading 
idea  of  his  Gospel. 

St.  Mark  has  but  one  Parable  which  is  peculiar  to  himself,  that  of 
the  Seed  growing  by  itself,  (iv.  26,)  which  is  nearly  related  in  sub- 
stance to  that  of  the  Mustard  Seed  in  Matthew,  the  place  of  which  it  ap- 
pears to  occupy.  There  is  not,  I  believe,  anything  so  peculiar  in  his 
record  of  the  parables  as  to  call  for  especial  notice. 


CHAPTER  III. 

ON  THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  PARABLES. 

The  parables,  fair  in  their  outward  form,  are  yet  fairer  within — 
apples  of  gold  in  network  of  silver:  each  one  of  them  like  a  casket,  it- 
self of  exquisite  workmanship,  but  in  which  jewels  yet  richer  than  itself 
are  laid  up  ;  or  as  fruit,  Avhich,  however  lovely  to  look  upon,  is  yet 
more  delectable  still  in  its  inner  sweetness.*  To  find  then  the  golden 
key  for  this  casket,  at  the  touch  of  which  it  shall  reveal  its  treasures  ; 
to  open  this  fruit,  so  that  nothing  of  its  hidden  kernel  shall  be  missed  or 
lost,  has  naturally  been  regarded  ever  as  a  matter  of  high  concern.f 
And  in  this,  the  interpretation  of  the  parable,  a  subject  to  which  we  have 
now  arrived,  there  is  one  question  which  presents  itself  anew  at  every 
step ;  namely  this,  how  much  of  them  is  significant  ?  and  on  this  sub- 
ject there  have  been  among  interpreters  the  most  opposite  theories. 
Some  have  gone  a  great  way  in  saying, — This  is  merely  drapery  and 
ornament,  and  not  the  vehicle  of  essential  truth  ;  this  was  introduced 
either  as  useful  to  given  liveliness  and  a  general  air  of  verisimilitude  to 
the  narrative,  or  as  actually  necessary  to  make  the  story,  which  is  the 

*  Bernard :  Superficies  ipsa,  tanquam  a  foris  considerata,  decora  est  valde :  et  si 
quis  fregerit  nucem,  intus  inveniet  quod  jucundius  sit,  et  mulio  amplius  delectabile. 

t  Jerome  {In  Ecclea.  xii.) :  Parabola;  aliud  in  medulla  habent,  aliud  in  superficie 
poUicentur,  et  quasi  in  terra  aurum,  in  nuce  nucleus,  in  hirsutis  castanearum  operculis 
absconditus  fructus  inquiritur,  ita  in  eis  divinus  sensus  altius  perscrutandus. 


OF  PARABLES.  3| 

substratum  of  the  truth,  a  consistent  whole,  since  without  this  consist- 
ency the  hearer  would  be  both  perplexed  and  offended, — to  hold  together 
and  connect  the  different  parts,  just  as  in  the  most  splendid  house  there 
must  be  passages,  not  for  their  own  sake,  but  to  lead  from  one  room  to  an- 
other.* Chrysostom  continually  warns  against  pressing  too  anxiously 
all  the  circumstances  of  a  parable,  and  often  cuts  his  own  interpretation 
somewhat  short  in  language  like  this, — "  Be  not  curious  about  the 
rest  t""!"  and  in  like  manner,  the  interpreters  that  habitually  follow  him, 
Theophylact  :|:  and  others,  though  not  always  faithful  to  their  own  prin- 
ciples. So  also  Origen,  who  illustrates  his  meaning  by  a  comparison  of 
great  beauty.  He  says,  "  For  as  the  likenesses  which  are  given  in  pic- 
tures and  statues  are  not  perfect  resemblances  of  those  things  for  whose 
sake  they  are  made — but  for  instance  the  image  which  is  painted  in  wax 
on  a  plain  surface  of  wood,  contains  a  resemblance  of  the  superficies 
and  colours,  but  does  not  also  preserve  the  depressions  and  prominences, 
but  only  a  representation  of  them — while  a  statue,  again,  seeks  to  pre- 
serve the  likeness  which  consists  in  prominences  and  depressions,  but 
not  as  well  that  which  is  in  colours — but  should  the  statue  be  of  wax,  it 
seeks  to  retain  both,  I  mean  the  colours,  and  also  the  depressions  and 
prominences,  but  is  not  an  image  of  those  things  which  are  within — in 
the  same  manner,  of  the  parables  which  are  contained  in  the  Gospels  so 
account,  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  when  it  is  likened  to  anything,  is 
not  likened  to  it  according  to  all  the  things  which  are  contained  in  that 
with  which  the  comparison  is  instituted,  but  according  to  certain  quali- 
ties which  the  matter  in  hand  requires. "§  Exactly  thus  in  modern 
times  it   has  been   said  that  the  parable  and  its  interpretation  are  not 

*  Tertullian  {De  Pudicitid,  c.  9) :  Quare  centum  oves?  et  quid  utique  decern 
drachmae?  et  quae  illae  scop«?  Necesse  erat  qui  unius  peccatoris  salutem  gralissi- 
mam  Deo  volebat  exprimere,  aliquam  numeri  quantitatem  nominaret,  de  quo  unum 
qujdem  perisse  describeret :  necesse  erat  ut  habitus  requirentis  drachmam  in  domo,  tam 
scoparum  quam  lucernae  adminiculo  accommodaretur.  Hujusmodi  enim  curiositates  et 
suspecta  faciunt  quaedam,  et  coactarum  expositionum  subtilitate  plerumque  deducunt  a 
veritate.  Sunt  autem  quae  et  simpliciter  posita  sunt  ad  struendam  et  disponendam  et 
texendam  parabolam.ut  illuc  perducantur,  cui  exemplum  procuratur.  Brower  {DePar. 
J.  C,  p.  175) :  Talia  omittinon  potuerunt,quoniam  eorum  tantum  ope  res  ad  eventum 
facile  perduci  posset,  ciim  alioquin  saltus  fieret  aut  hiatus  in  narratione,qui  rei  narratae 
similitudini  omnino  noceret,  vel  quia  eorum  neglectus  auditores  fortasse  ad  inanes  quses- 
tiones  et  dubitationes  invitare  posset. 

t   TdXXo  i^ri  nepiepyd^ov. 

t  Theophylact  (In  Luc.  XVi.)  :  Tliiaa  Trapa0o\!i  TrXayitoj  Kai  etKovtKoJs  Sl^oi  irpayfidrtov 
Ttvoiv  ipiaiv,  oi  Kara  navTa  ioiKvTa  tois  Trpayiiatjiv  tKcivoii,  St'  a  napeXfiipOri.  ii'  S  oiSi  j^jsJ)  navra 
TOL  ficpi  Tbiv  Trapa0o\6iv  XsTroif  TroXxinpaynovevcirBai,  dW  baov  soikc  Tto  TTpoKtijiCvo)  Kapnovixei/ovi. 
Ta  Xoiira  tai/,  toj  tj  iTapa0o\}j  avvvipiaTaij).tva,  Koi  iir,ilv  irpos  to  TrpoKciftcvov  cvjjpa'Wfipei'a. 

§   Comm.  in  Matth.  xiii.  47. 


32  ON  THE  INTERPRETATION 

to  be  contemplated  as  two  planes,  touching  one  another  at  every  point, 
but  oftentimes  rather  as  a  plane  and  a  globe,  which,  though  brought  into 
contact,  yet  touch  one  another  only  in  one. 

On  the  other  hand,  Augustine,  though  sometimes  laying  down  the 
same  principle,  frequently  extends  the  interpretation  through  all  the 
branches  and  minutest  fibres  of  the  narrative,*  and  Origen  not  less, 
despite  the  passage  which  I  have  just  quoted.  And  in  modern  times, 
the  followers  of  Cocceius  have  been  particularly  earnest  in  affirming 
all  parts  of  a  parable  to  be  significant. f  Perhaps,  I  might  mar  the  plea- 
sure of  some  readers  in  the  following  noble  passage,  by  saying  from 
whence  it  was  drawn  :  but  the  writer  is  describinnr  the  loner  and  labo- 
rious  care  which  he  took  to  master  the  literal  meaning  of  every  word  in 
the  parables,  being  confident  of  the  riches  of  inward  truth  which  every 
one  of  those  words  contained  ;  he  goes  on  to  say, — "  Of  my  feelings  and 
progress  in  studying  the  parables  of  our  Lord,  I  have  found  no  simili. 
tude  worthy  to  convey  the  impression,  save  that  of  sailing  through  be- 
tween the  Pillars  of  Hercules  into  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  where  you 
have  to  pass  between  armed  rocks,  in  a  strait,  and  under  a  current — all 
requiring  careful  and  skilful  seamanship — but  being  past,  opening  into 
such  a  large,  expansive,  and  serene  ocean  of  truth,  so  engirdled  round 
with  rich  and  fertile  lands,  so  inlaid  with  beautiful  and  verdant  islands, 
and  full  of  rich  colonies  and  populous  cities,  that  unspeakable  is  the 
delight  and  the  reward  it  yieldeth  to  the  voyager." 

On  a  review  of  the  whole  controversy  it  may  safely  be  said,  that  the 
advocates  of  the  first-mentioned  scheme  of  interpretation  have  been  too 
easily  satisfied  with  their  favourite  saying — "  Every  comparison  must 
halt  somewhere  ;":}: — since  one  may  well  demand,  "  Where  is  the  neces. 
sity  ?"  There  is  no  force  in  the  reply,  that  unless  it  did  so,  it  would 
not  be  an  illustration  of  the  thing,  but  the  thing  itself;  since  two  lines 
do  not  become  one,  nor  cease  to  be  two,  because  they  run  parallel 
through  their  whole  course  ;  it  needs  not  that  they  somewhere  cease  to 
be  parallel,  to  prevent  them  from  being  one  and  the  same.§  It  may 
well  be  considered,  too,  whether  these  interpreters,  in  their  fear  ofcapri- 
cious  allegories,  have  not  run  into  an  opposite  extreme.  It  is  quite  true, 
to  use  an  illustration  which  they  sometimes  employ,  that  a  knife  is  not  all 

*  See  a  wonderful  instance  of  the  extent  to  which  this  may  be  done  in  an  exposi- 
tion of  the  Prodigal  Son,  given  in  his  Quast.  Evang.,  1.  2.  qu.  33. 

t  Teelman  (Comm.  in  Luc.  xvi.,  p.  34-52)  defends  this  principle  at  length  and 
with  much  ability. 

I  Omne  simile  claudicat. 

§  Theophylact  (in  Suicer's  Thcs.,  S.  v.  irapaffoM)  :  'H  vapaffoXr),  eav  Sia  -iravTWV  au^n- 
rai,  ovK  ecTt  TrapalSoXl',  dW  avrd  CKCtvo,  (!('  S  i';  TrapaQoXfi. 


OF  PARABLES,  33 

edge,  nor  a  harp  all  strings ;  that  much  in  the  knife,  which  does  not 
cut,  is  yet  of  prime  necessity,  as  the  handle, — much,  in  the  musical  in- 
strument, which  is  not  intended  to  give  sound,  must  yet  not  be  wanting : 
or  to  use  another  comparison,  that  many  circumstances  "  in  Christ's 
parables  are  like  the  feathers  which  wing  our  arrows,  which,  though 
they  pierce  not  like  the  head,  but  seem  slight  things  and  of  a  different 
matter  from  the  rest,  are  yet  requisite  to  make  the  shaft  to  pierce,  and 
do  both  convey  it  to  and  penetrate  the  mark."*  It  is  true,  also,  that 
in  the  other  scheme  of  interpretation,  there  is  the  danger  lest  a  delight 
in  the  exercise  of  ingenuity  on  the  part  of  the  interpreter,  and  admira- 
tion of  the  ingenuity  so  exercised  on  the  side  of  the  readers  and  hearers, 
may  cause  it  to  be  forgotten  that  the  sanctification  of  the  heart  through 
the  truth  is  the  main  purpose  of  all  Scripture  : — even  as  there  will  pre- 
sently be  occasion  to  observe  how  heretics,  through  this  pressing  of  all 
parts  of  a  parable  to  the  uttermost,  have  been  wont  to  extort  from  it 
almost  any  meaning  that  they  pleased. 

Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  shallow  spirit  ever  ready  to  empty 
Scripture  of  the  depth  of  its  meaning,  toexclaim — "  This  means  nothing, 
this  circumstance  is  not  to  be  pressed ;"  and  satisfying  ourselves  with 
sayings  like  these,  we  may  foil  to  draw  out  from  the  word  of  God  all  the 
riches  of  meaning  that  are  contained  in  it  for  us, — we  may  fail  to  observe 
and  to  admire  the  wisdom  with  which  the  type  was  constructed  to  cor- 
respond with  its  antitype.  For  as  a  work  of  human  art,  a  statue,  for 
instance,  is  the  more  perfect  in  the  measure  that  the  life,  the  idea  that 


*  Boyle's  Style  of  the  Holy  Scriptures ;  Fifth  Objection.  There  is  a  remarkable 
passage  in  Augustine  (Z?e  Civ.  Dei,  1.  16,  c.  2),  where  he  carries  out  this  view  still  fur- 
ther ;  Non  sane  omnia  quae  gesta  narrantur,  aliquid  etiam  significare  putanda  sunt : 
sed  propter  ilia  quae  aliquid  significant,  etiam  ilia  quae  nihil  significant  attexuntur. 
Solo  enim  vomere  terra  proscinditur,  sed  ut  hoc  fieri  possit,  etiam  CcEtera  aratri  mem- 
bra sunt  necessaria.  Et  soli  nervi  in  citharis  atque  hujusmodi  vasis  musicis  aptantur 
ad  cantum,  sed  ut  aptari  possint,  insunt  et  caetera  in  compaginibus  organoruni,  quae 
non  percutiuntur  a  canentibus,  sed  ea  quae  percussa  resonant  his  connectuntur.  Ita  in 
prophetica  historia  dicuntur  et  aliqua,  quae  nihil  significant,  sed  quibus  adhaereant  quae 
significant,  et  quomodo  religentur.  Cf.  Con.  Faust.  1.  22.  c.  94.  A  Romish  expositor, 
Salmeron  has  a  comparison  something  similar :  Certum  est  gladium  non  omni  ex 
parte  scindere,  sed  una  tantilm  :  nee  enim  per  manubrium  secat,  neque  per  partem 
obtusam  oppositam  aciei,  neque  per  cuspidem,  sed  tantilm  per  aciem  secat.  Et  tanien 
nemo  sanae  mentis  dixerit  aut  manubrium  aut  cuspidem  aut  partem  obtusam  oppositam 
aciei,  necessaria  nod  esse  ad  scindendum  :  nam  etsi  per  se  ipsa  non  scindant,  serviunt 
tamen  ut  pars  quae  acuta  cst,et  adsecandum  nata,  scindere  fortiilsetcommodius  valeat. 
Ita  in  parabolis  multa  afferuntur,  quae  etsi  per  se  ipsa  sensum  spiritalem  non  efficiant, 
conducunt  tamen  ut  parabola  per  illam  partem  scindat  et  secet,  ad  quod  praestandum 
ab  auctore  proposita  fuerat. 


34  ON  THE  INTERPRETATION 

was  in  the  sculptor's  mind,  breathes  out  of  and  looks  through  every  fea- 
ture and  limb,  so  much  the  greater  being  the  triumph  of  spirit,  pene- 
trating through  and  glorifying  the  matter  which  it  has  assumed  ;  so  the 
more  translucent  a  parable  is  in  all  parts  with  the  divine  truth  which  it 
embodies,  the  more  the  garment  with  which  it  is  arrayed,  is  a  garment 
of  light,  pierced  through,  as  was  once  the  raiment  of  Christ,  with  the 
brightness  within, — illuminating  it  in  all  its  recesses  and  corners,  and 
leaving  no  dark  place  in  it, — by  so  much  the  more  beautiful  and  perfect 
it  must  be  esteemed.  It  may  be  further  answered,  that  of  those  who 
start  with  the  principle  that  so  much  is  to  be  set  aside  as  non-essential, 
scarcely  are  to  be  found  any  two  agreed,  when  it  comes  to  the  applica. 
tion  of  their  principle,  concerning  what  actually  is  to  be  set  aside  ;  what 
one  rejects,  another  retains,  and  the  contrary.  Moreover,  it  is  always 
observable  that  the  more  this  system  is  carried  out,  the  more  the  pecu- 
liar beauty  of  the  parable  disappears,  and  the  interest  in  it  is  weakened. 
For  example,  when  Calvin  will  not  allow  the  oil  in  the  vessels  (Matt. 
XXV.)  to  mean  anything,  and  when  Storr,*  who,  almost  more  than  any 
other,  would  leave  the  parables  bare  trunks,  stripped  of  all  their  foliage 
and  branches,  of  all  that  made  for  beauty  and  ornament,  denies  that  the 
Prodigal  leaving  his  father's  house  has  any  direct  reference  to  man's 
departure  from  the  presence  of  his  heavenly  Father,  it  is  at  once  evident 
of  how  much,  not  merely  of  pleasure,  but  of  instruction,  they  would 
deprive  us.  It  may  be  remarked  too,  in  opposition  to  the  interpretation 
of  the  parables  merely  in  the  gross,  that  when  our  Lord  himself  inter- 
preted the  two  first  which  he  delivered,  those  of  the  Sower,  and  of  the 
Tares,  it  is  more  than  probable  that  he  intended  to  furnish  us  with  a 
key  for  the  interpretation  of  all.  These  explanations  therefore  are  most 
important,  not  merely  for  their  own  sakes,  but  as  laying  down  the  prin- 
ciples and  canons  of  interpretation  to  be  applied  throughout.  Now  in 
these  the  moral  application  descends  to  some  of  the  minutest  details  of 
the  narrative :  thus,  the  birds  which  snatch  away  the  seed  sown,  are  ex- 
plained as  Satan  who  takes  the  good  word  out  of  the  heart,  (Matt.  xiii.  19,) 
the  thorns  correspond  to  the  cares  and  pleasures  of  life,  (Matt.  xiii.  22,) 
and  much  more  of  the  same  kind.  "  It  must  be  allowed,"  says  Tho- 
luck,f  "  that  a"  similitude  is  perfect  in  proportion  as  it  is  on  all  sides 
rich  in  applications  ;:t^  and  hence,  in  treating  the  parables  of  Christ,  the 

*  De  Paraholis  Christi,  in  his  Opusc.  Acad.,  v.  1,  p.  89. 

t  Auslegung  der  Bergpredigt.p.  201.  With  this  agrees  what  Bishop  Lowth 
says,  De  Sac.  Pods.  Heb.,  Pral.  10. 

t  Vitringa:  Placent  mihi  qui  ex  parabolis  Christi  Domini  plus  veritatis  eliciunt, 
quam  generate  quoddam  prajceptum  ethicum,  per  parabolam  illustratum  et  auditorum 
animis  fortius  infiium.     Non  quod  audaciter  pronunciare  sustineam,  ejusmodi  insti- 


OF  PARABLES.  35 

expositor  must  proceed  on  the  presumption  that  there  is  import  in  every 
single  point,  and  only  desist  from  seeking  it,  when  either  it  do.es  not 
result  without  forcing,  or  >vhen  we  can  clearly  show  that  this  or  that 
circumstance  was  merely  added  for  the  sake  of  giving  intuitiveness  to 
the  narrative.  We  should  not  assume  anything  to  be  non-essential, 
except  when  by  holding  it  fast  as  essential  the  unity  of  the  whole  is 
marred  and  troubled."* 
^  It  will  much  help  us  in  this  matter  of  determining  what  is  essential 

and  what  not,  if,  before  we  attempt  to  explain  the  particular  parts,  we 
obtain  fast  hold  of  the  central  truth  which  the  parable  would  set  forth, 
and  distinguish  it  in  the  mind  as  sharply  and  accurately  as  we  can  from 
all  cognate  truths  which  border  upon  it ;  for  only  seen  from  that  middle 
point  will  the  different  parts  appear  in  their  true  light.  "  One  may 
compare,"  says  a  late  writer  on  the  parables,"!"  "  the  entire  parable  with 
a  circle,  of  which  the  middle  point  is  the  spiritual  truth  or  doctrine,  and 
of  which  the  radii  are  the  several  circumstances  of  the  narration ;  so 
long  as  one  has  not  placed  oneself  in  the  centre,  neither  the  circle  itself 
appears  in  its  perfect  shape,  nor  will  the  beautiful  unity  with  which  the 
radii  converge  to  a  single  point  be  perceived,  but  this  is  all  observed  so 
soon  as  the  eye  looks  forth  from  the  centre.     Even  so  in  the  parable,  if 


tutionis  aut  persuasionis  genus,  si  Domino  nostro  placuisset  illud  adhibere,  cum 
summS  ejus  sapientia  non  potuisse  consistere.  Contendo  tamen  de  summa  sapientia 
qualis  ilia  fuit  Filii  Dei,  nos  merito  plus  praesumere,  ac  propterea,  si  parabolee  Christi 
Domini  ita  explicari  queant,  ut  singulse  earum  partes  commode  et  absque  violentis 
contorsionibus  transferantur  ad  oeconomiam  Ecclesiae,  illud  ego  explicationis  genus 
tanquam  optumum  amplectendum,  et  cseteris  praeferendum  existimo.  Quanto  enim 
plus  solidae  veritatis  ex  Verbo  Dei  eruerimus  si  nihil  obstet,  tanto  magis  divinam 
commendabimus  sapientiam. 

*  Out  of  this  feeling  the  Jewish  doctors  distinguished  lower  forms  of  revelation 
from  higher,  dreams  from  prophetic  communications  thus,  that  in  the  higher  all  was 
essential,  while  the  dream  ordinarily  contained  something  that  was  superfluous  ;  and 
they  framed  this  axiom, — "  As  there  is  no  corn  without  straw,  so  neither  is  there 
any  mere  dream  without  something  that  is  dpySv,  void  of  reality  and  insignificant." 
They  would  instance  Joseph's  dream  ;  (Gen.  xxivii.  9 ;)  the  moon  could  not  there 
have  been  well  left  out,  when  all  the  heavenly  host  did  obeisance  to  him :  yet  this 
circumstance  was  thus  dpydv,  for  his  mother,  who  thereby  was  signified,  was  even 
then  dead,  and  so  incapable  of  rendering  hereafter  the  homage  to  him  which  the 
others  at  last  did.     (See  John  Smith's  Discourses,  j).  178.) 

+  Lisco :  Die  Paraheln  Jesu,  p.  22  ;  a  sound  and  useful  work.  It  has  been 
translated  into  English — how,  may  be  guessed  by  a  single  specimen.  Having  occa- 
sion to  characterize  Vitringa's  ErklHrung  der  Paraholen,  Lisco  observes  of  it  thus : 
Ein  iiber  1000  Seiten  starkes  Werk,  breiter  Sprache  (a  book  more  than  a  thousand 
pages  thick,  very  diflfuse)  which  however  reappears  in  the  translation :  "  A  work  of 
great  power  in  many  respects,  in  broad  dialect." 


36  ON  THE  INTERPRETATION 

we  have  recognized  its  middle  point,  its  main  doctrine,  in  full  light,  then 
will  the  proportion  and  right  signification  of  all  particular  circumstances 
be  clear  unto  us,  and  we  shall  lay  stress  upon  them  only  so  far  as  the 
main  truth  is  thereby  more  vividly  set  forth." 

There  is  another  rule  which  it  is  important  to  observe,  which  at  the 
same  time  is  so  simple  and  obvious,  that  were  it  not  very  frequently  ne- 
glected, it  would  hardly  be  thought  needful  to  be  mentioned,  but  might 
be  left  to  the  common  sense  of  every  interpreter.  It  is  this,  that  as  in 
the  explanation  of  the  fable,  the  introduction  (n^oixvd-iov)  and  applica- 
tion {ini^v&iov)  claim  to  be  most  carefully  attended  to,  so  here  what 
some  have  entitled  the  pro-parabola  and  epi-parabola,  though  the  other 
terms  would  have  done  sufficiently  well,  which  are  invariably  the  finger- 
posts pointing  to  the  direction  in  which  we  are  to  look  for  the  meaning, 
— the  key  to  the  whole  matter.  These  deserve  the  most  attentive  heed, 
as  their  neglect  often  betrays  into  the  most  untenable  explanations  ;  for 
instance,  how  many  of  the  interpretations  which  have  been  elaborately 
worked  out  of  the  Labourers  in  the  Vineyard,  could  never  have  been  so 
much  as  once  proposed,  if  heed  had  been  paid  to  the  context,  or  the  ne- 
cessity been  acknowledged  of  bringing  the  interpretation  into  harmony 
with  the  saying,  which  introduces  and  winds  up  the  parable.  These 
helps  to  interpretation,  though  rarely  or  never  lacking,*  are  yet  given 
in  no  fixed  or  formal  manner  ;  sometimes  they  are  supplied  by  the  Lord 
himself,  (Matt.  xxii.  14;  xxv.  13;)  sometimes  by  the  inspired  narrators 
of  his  words,  (Luke  xv.  1,  2;  xviii.  1  ;)  sometimes,  as  the  prologue, 
they  precede  the  parable,  (Luke  xviii.  9;  xix.  11  ;)  sometimes,  as  the 
epilogue,  they  follow,  (Matt.  xxv.  13;  Luke  xvi.  9.)  Occasionally  a 
parable  is  furnished  with  these  helps  to  its  right  understanding  and  ap- 
plication  both  at  its  opening  and  its  close ;  as  is  that  of  the  Unmerciful 
Servant,  (Matt,  xviii.  23,)  which  is  suggested  by  the  question  which 
Peter  asks,  (ver.  21,)  and  wound  up  by  the  application  which  the  Lord 
himself  makes,  (ver.  35.)  So  again  the  Parable,  at  Matt.  xx.  1-15, 
begins  and  finishes  with  the  same  saying,  and  Luke  xii.  16-20  is  sup- 
plied with  the  same  amount  of  help  for  its  right  understanding. f 

*  Tertullian  (De  Resttr.  Carn. ,c. 33):  Nullum  parabolam  non  aut  ab  ipso  invenias 
edisseratam,  ut  de  Seminatore  in  verbi  administratione :  aut  k  commentatore  Evangelii 
praeluminatam,  ut  judicis  superbi  et  vidua?  instantis  ad  perseverantiam  orationes  ;  aut 
ultro  conjectandani,  ut  arboris  fici.dilata:  in  spem,  ad  instar  Judaicae  infructuositatis. 

t  Salmeron  (Senn.  in  Evang.  Par.,  p.  19)  has  a  threefold  division  of  the  parable, 
which  is  worth  noticing.  There  are  three  things,  he  says,  which,  in  proceeding  to  in- 
terpret it,  claim  our  attention  ;  the  radix  or  root  out  of  which  it  grows,  which  may  also 
be  regarded  as  the  final  cause  or  scope  with  which  it  is  spoken,  which  is  to  be  looked 
for  in  the  irpofiiOiov ;  next,  the  cortex  or  the  outward  sensuous  array  in  which  it  clothes 
itself;  and  then  the  medulla,  or  inward  core,  the  spiritual  truth  which  it  enfolds. 


OP  PARABLES.  37 

Again,  we  may  observe  that  an  interpretation,  besides  being  thus  in 
accordance  with  its  context,  must  be  so  without  any  very  violent  means 
being  applied  to  bring  it  into  such  agreement ;  even  as,  generally  the 
interpretation  must  be  easy — if  not  always  easy  to  be  discovered,  yet 
being  discovered,  easy.  For  it  is  here  as  with  the  laws  of  nature  ;  the 
proleptic  mind  of  genius  may  be  needful  to  discover  the  law,  but  being 
discovered,  it  throws  back  light  on  itself,  and  commends  itself  unto  all. 
And  there  is  this  other  point  of  similarity  also ;  it  is  the  proof  of  the 
law  that  it  explains  all  the  phenomena  and  not  merely  some — that 
sooner  or  later  they  all  marshal  themselves  in  order  under  it:  so  it  is 
tolerable  evidence  that  we  have  found  the  right  interpretation  of  a  para- 
ble, if  it  leave  none  of  the  main  circumstances  unexplained.  A  false 
interpretation  will  inevitably  betray  itself,  since  it  will  "  invariably 
paralyze  and  render  nugatory  some  important  member  of  an  entire  ac- 
count." If  we  have  the  right  key  in  our  hand,  not  merely  some  of  the 
wards,  but  all,  will  have  their  corresponding  parts,  and  moreover  the 
key  will  turn  without  grating  or  over-much  forcing;  and  if  we  have 
the  right  interpretation,  it  will  scarcely  need  to  be  defended  and  made 
plausible  with  great  appliance  of  learning,  to  be  propped  up  by  remote 
allusions  to  Rabbinical  or  profane  literature,  by  illustrations  drawn  from 
the  recesses  of  antiquity.* 

Once  more — the  parables  may  not  be  made  first  sources  of  doctrine. 
Doctrines  otherwise  and  already  grounded  may  be  illustrated,  or  indeed 
further  confirmed  by  them ;  but  it  is  not  allowable  to  constitute  doc- 
trine first  by  their  aid.f    They  may  be  the  outer  ornamental  fringe,  but 

*  That  which  is  required  in  a  satisfactory  solution,  is  well  stated  by  Teelman 
(Comm.  in  Luc,  16,  p.  23) :  Explicatio  non  sit  hiulca,  non  aspera,non  auribus  nee  ju- 
dicio  difficilis,  non  ridicula  ;  sed  mollis  et  verecunda,  leniter  manantis  fluvii  instar 
amcenitate  in  aures  auditorumque  judicium  influens,  appropriata,  proxima,  et  ab  omni 
longa  petitione  remota. 

t  This  rule  finds  its  expression  in  the  recognized  axiom :  Theologia  parabolica  non 
est  argumentativa.  And  again  :  Ex  solo  sensu  litterali  peti  possunt  argumenta  efiica- 
cia.  See  Gerhard's  Loc.  Theol.,  1.  2,  c.  13,  §  202.  There  is  a  beautiful  passage  in 
Anslem's  Cur  Deus  Homo,  1. 1,  c.  4,  on  the  futility  of  using  as  primary  arguments  what 
indeed  can  but  serve  as  graceful  confirmation  of  truths  already  on  other  grounds  re- 
ceived and  believed, — and  against  gainsayers  most  of  all.  The  objector  is  made  to  re- 
ply to  one  who  presses  him  with  the  wonderful  correspondencies  of  Scripture :  Omnia 
haec  pulcra  et  quasi  quaedam  picturae  suscipienda  sunt :  sed  si  non  sit  aliquid  solidum 
super  quod  sedeant,  non  videntur  infidelibus  satisfacere  :  nam  qui  picturam  vult  facere, 
aliquid  eligit  solidum  super  quod  pingat,  ut  maneat  quod  pingit.  Nemo  enim  pingit 
in  aqua  vel  in  aSre  ;  quia  ibi  nulla  manent  pictures  vestigia.  Qua  propter  cfim  has 
convenientias  quas  dicis,  infidelibus  quasi  quasdam  picturas  rei  gestae  obtendimus,  quo- 
niam  non  rem  gestam  sed  figmentum  arbtrantur  esse  quod  credimus  ;  quasi  super  nu- 
bem   pingere  nos  existimant.     Monstranda   est   prius   veritatis   rationabilis   soliditas. 


38  ON  THE  INTERPRETATION 

not  the  main  texture,  of  the  proof.  For  from  the  literal  to  the  figura- 
tive, from  the  clearer  to  the  more  obscure,  has  been  ever  recognized  as 
the  law  of  Scripture  interpretation.  This  rule,  however,  has  been  often 
forgotten,  and  controversialists,  looking  round  for  arguments  with  which 
to  sustain  some  weak  position,  one  for  which  they  can  find  no  other  sup- 
port in  Scripture,  often  invent  for  themselves  supports  in  these.  Thus 
Bellarmine  presses  the  parable  of  the  Good  Samaritan,  and  the  circum- 
stance that  in  that  the  thieves  are  said  Jirst  to  have  stripped  the  traveller, 
and  afterwards  to  have  inflicted  wounds  on  him,  as  proving  certain 
views  of  the  Romish  Church  on  the  order  of  man's  fall,  the  succession 
in  which,  first  losing  heavenly  gifts,  the  robe  of  a  divine  righteousness, 
he  afterwards,  and  as  a  consequence,  endured  actual  hurts  in  his  soul.* 
And  in  the  same  way  Faustus  Socinus  argues  from  the  parable  of  the 
Unmerciful  Servant,  that  as  the  king  pardoned  his  servant  merely  on  his 
petition,  (Matt,  xviii.  22,)  and  not  on  account  of  any  satisfaction  made, 
or  any  mediator  intervening,  we  may  draw  from  this  the  conclusion, 
that  in  the  same  way,  and  without  requiring  sacrifice  or  intercessor, 
God  pardons  his  debtors  simply  on  the  ground  of  their  prayers. f 

But  far  the  greatest  sinners  against  this  rule  were  the  Gnostics  and 
Manichaeans  in  old  time,  especially  the  former.  The  parables  were  far 
too  welcome  to  these,  who  could  find  no  colour  for  their  scheme  in  the 
plain  declarations  of  Scripture,  for  them  to  allow  themselves  to  be  rob- 
bed of  the  help  which  they  hoped  to  find  in  this  quarter,  by  attending 
to  any  such  canon  as  this.  The  whole  scheme  of  the  Gnostics  was  one, 
which,  however  it  may  have  been  a  result  of  the  Gospel,  inasmuch  as 
that  set  the  religious  speculation  of  the  world  vigorously  astir,  was  yet 
of  independent  growth  ;  and  they  only  came  to  the  Scripture  to  find  a 
varnish,  an  outer  Christian  colouring,  for  a  system  essentially  antichris- 
tian  ; — not  to  learn  its  language,  but  to  see  if  they  could  not  compel  it 
to  speak  theirs.::!:     They  came  with  no  desire  to  draw  out  q/*  Scripture 

Deinde,  ut  ipsum  quasi  corpus  veritatis  plus  niteat,  istae  convenientice,  quasi  picturse 
corporis  sunt  exponendae. 

*  De  Grat.  Prim.  Horn. :  Neque  enim  sine  causa  Dominus  in  parabola  ilia  prius 
dixit,  hominem  spoliatum,  posterius  autem,  vulneratum  fuisse,  cCim  tamen  contra  acci- 
dere  soleat  in  veris  hitrociniis ;  nimirum  indicare  voluit,  in  hoc  spirituali  latrocinio  ex 
ipsa  amissione  justitiae  originalis  nata  esse  vulnera  nostrae  naturae.  (See  Gerhard's  Loc. 
TAeoZ.,  ioc.  9.  c.  2.  §86.) 

t  Deyling,  Ohss.  Sac,  v.  4,  c.  649.  Socinus  here  sins  against  another  rule  of 
Scripture  interpretation  as  of  common  sense,  which  is,  that  we  are  not  to  expect  in 
every  place  the  whole  circle  of  Christian  truth  to  be  fully  stated,  and  that  no  conclusion 
may  be  drawn  from  the  absence  of  a  doctrine  from  one  passage  which  is  clearly  stated 
in  others.  Jerome  (Adv.  Jovin.,  1.  2) :  Neque  enim  in  omnibus  iocis  docentur  omnia  ; 
Bed  unaquaeque  similitude  ad  id  refertur  cujus  est  similitudo. 

X  Jerome :  Ad  voluntatem  suam  Scripturam  trahere  repugnantem. 


OF  PARABLES. 


39 


its  meaning,  but  to  thrust  into  Scripture  their  own.*  When  they  fell 
thus  to  picking  and  choosing  from  it  what  was  best  adapted  to  their  ends, 
the  parables  would  naturally  invite  them  almost  more  than  any  other 
portions  of  Scripture  ;  for  it  was  plain  that  they  must  abandon  the  literal 
portions  of  Scripture  ;  their  only  refuge  was  in  the  figurative,  in  those 
which  might  receive  more  interpretations  than  one  ;  such  perhaps  they 
might  bend  to  their  purposes.  Accordingly  we  find  them  revelling  in 
these  ;  with  no  joy  indeed  in  them,  on  account  of  their  simplicity  or 
practical  depth  or  ethical  beauty  ;  for  they  seem  to  have  had  no  sense  or 
feeling  of  these  ;  but  delighted  to  superinduce  upon  them  their  own  ca- 
pricious and  extravagant  fancies.  Irenseus  is  continually  compelled  to 
vindicate  the  parables  against  them,  and  to  rescue  them  from  the  extreme 
abuse  to  which  they  submitted  them,  who  not  merely  warped  and  drew 
them  a  little  aside,  but  made  them  tell  wholly  a  different  tale  from  that 
which  they  were  intended  to  tell.t  Against  them  he  lays  down  that 
canon,  namely,  that  the  parables  cannot  be  in  any  case  the  original  or  the 
exclusive  foundations  of  any  doctrine,  but  must  be  themselves  interpreted 
according  to  the  analogy  of  faith  ;  since,  if  every  subtle  solution  of  one 
of  these  might  raise  itself  at  once  to  the  dignity  and  authority  of  a 
Christian  doctrine,  the  rule  of  faith  would  be  nowhere.  So  to  build  were 
to  build  not  on  the  rock,  but  on  the  sand.ij: 

*  Irenaeus,  1.  1,  c.  8:  Ut  figmentum  illorum  non  sine  teste  esse  videatur.  All  this 
very  nearly  repeats  itself  in  Swedenborg,  in  whom,  indeed,  there  are  many  resem- 
blances to  the  Gnostics  of  old,  especially  the  distinctive  one  of  a  division  of  the  Church 
into  spiritual  and  carnal  members.  One,  estimating  his  system  of  Scripture  interpre- 
tation, thus  speaks :  "  His  spiritual  sense  of  Scripture  is  one  altogether  disconnected 
from  the  literal  sense,  is  rather  a  sense  before  the  sense  ;  not  a  sense  to  which  one 
mounts  up  from  the  steps  of  that  which  is  below,  but  in  which  one  must,  as  by  a  mira- 
cle, be  planted,  for  it  is  altogether  independent  of,  and  disconnected  from,  the  acci- 
dental externum  superadditum  of  the  literal  sense." 

t  In  a  striking  passage  (Adv.  Har.,  1.  1,  c.  8),  he  likens  their  dealing  with 
Scripture,  their  violent  transpositions  of  it  till  it  became  altogether  a  different  thing  in 
their  hands,  to  their  fraud,  who  should  break  up  some  work  of  exquisite  mosaic, 
wrought  by  a  skilful  artificer  to  present  the  effigy  of  a  king,  and  should  then  recompose 
the  pieces  upon  some  wholly  different  plan,  and  make  them  to  express  some  vile  im- 
age of  a  fox  or  dog,  hoping  that,  since  they  could  point  to  the'stones  as  being  the  same, 
they  should  be  able  to  persuade  the  simple  that  this,  was  the  king's  image  still. 

t  Thus  Con.  HcBr.,  1.  2,  c.  27.  Et  ideo  parabolas  debent  non  ambiguis  adaptari : 
sic  enim  et  qui  absolvit  sine  periculo  absolvit,  et  parabolse  ab  omnibus  similiter  abso- 
lutionem  accipient :  et  a  veritale  corpus  integrum,  et  simili  aptatione  membrorum  et 
sine  concussione  perseverat.  Sed  quae  non  aperte  dicta  sunt  neque  ante  oculos  posita, 
copulare  absolutionibus  parabolarum,  quas  unusquisque  prout  vult  adinvenit  [stultum 
est].  Sic  enim  apud  nullum  erit  regula  veritatis,  sed  quanti  fuerint  qui  absolvent  para- 
bolas, tantae  videbuntur  veritates  pugnantes  semet  invicem.  So  too  c.  3  :  Quia  autem 
parabolae  possunt  multas  recipere  absolutiones,  ex  ipsis  de  inquisitione  Dei  affirmare, 


40  ON  THE  INTERPRETATION 

Tertullian  has  the  same  conflict  to  maintain.  The  whole  scheme  of 
the  Gnostics  was  a  great  floating  cloud-palace,  the  figment  of  their  own 
brain,  and  having  no  counterpart  in  the  actual  world  of  realities.  They 
could  therefore  shape  or  mould  it  as  they  would.  They  found  no  diffi- 
culty then  in  forcing  the  parables  to  be  upon  their  side.  For  they 
readily  modified  their  scheme,  shaping  their  doctrine  according  to  the 
leadings  and  suggestions  of  these,  till  they  brought  the  two  into  apparent 
agreement  with  one  another.  There  was  nothing  to  hinder  them  here  ; 
their  doctrine  was  not  a  fixed  body  of  divine  truth  to  which  they  could 
neither  add  nor  take  away,  which  was  given  them  from  above,  and  in 
which  they  could  only  acquiesce  :  but  it  was  an  invention  of  their  own, 
and  they  could  invent  and  fashion  it  as  they  pleased,  and  as  best  suited 
their  purposes.  We,  as  Tertullian  often  says,  are  kept  within  limits  in 
the  exposition  of  the  parables,  accepting  as  we  do  the  other  Scriptures 
as  the  rule  to  us  of  truth,  as  the  rule  therefore  of  their  interpretation. 
It  is  otherwise  with  these  heretics  ;  their  doctrine  is  their  own ;  they 
can  first  dexterously  adapt  it  to  the  parables,  and  then  bring  forward 
this  adaptation  as  a  testimony  of  its  truth.* 

As  it  was  with  the  Gnostics  of  the  early  Church,  exactly  so  was  it 
with  the  cognate  sects  of  a  later  day,  the  Cathari,  and  Bogomili ;  they 
too  found  in  the  parables  no  teaching  about  sin  and  grace  and  redemp- 
tion, no  truths  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  but  fitted  to  them  the  speculations 
about  the  creation,  the  origin  of  evil,  the  fall  of  angels,  which  were 
uppermost  in  their  minds,  which  they  had  not  drawn  from  Scripture,  but 
which  having  framed,  they  afterwards  turned  to  Scripture  to  find  if  there 
was  not  something  there  which  they  could  compel  to  fall  into  their  scheme. 


reliiiquentes  quod  ccrtum  et  indubitatum  et  veram  est,  valde  praecipitantium  se  in 
periculum  et  irrationabilium  esse,  quis  non  amantium  veritatem  confitebitur  ]  et  nura- 
quid  hoc  est  non  in  petia  firnia  et  valida  et  in  aperto  posita  Jedificare  suam  domum, 
sed  in  incertum  effusae  arenae  ?  Unde  et  facilis  est  eversio  hujusmodi  aedificationis.  Cf. 
1.  2,  c.  10  ;  and  for  an  example  of  what  they  were  able  to  bring  out  of  a  parable,  see 
the  explanations  of  the  Lost  Sheep,  and  the  Lost  Piece  of  Money,  1.  1,  c.  16.  The 
miracles  were  submitted  by  them  to  the  same  process  of  interpretation  ;  see  1.  1,  c.  7, 
and  1.  2,  c.  24. 

*  Be  Pudicilid,  c.  8,  9.  Among  much  else  which  is  interesting,  he  says,  Haere- 
tici  parabolas  quo  volunt  trahunt,  non  quo  debent,  aptissimc  excludunt.  [His  image  is 
from  the  workers  in  gold  or  rather  metals  ;  called  exclusores  (see  Augustine,  Enarr. 
in  Fs.  liv.  22)  from  excludere,  to  strike  or  stamp  out  (Du  Cange,s.  v.)  This  meaning 
of  the  word  excludere  is  wanting  in  Scheller's  Bictionary .]  Quare  aptissinie  ?  Quo- 
niam  a  primordio  secundum  occasiones  parabolarum,  ipsas  materias  confinxerunt  doc- 
trinse.  Vacavit  scilicet  illis  solutis  a  regula  veritatis,  ea  conquirere  atque  componere, 
quorum  parabola  videntur.  Thus  too  Be  Prase.  Haret.,  c.  8,  Valentinus  non  ad 
materiam  Scripturas  sed  materiam  ad  Scripturas,  excogitavit. 


OF  PARABLES.  4X 

Thus  the  apostacy  of  Satan  and  his  drawing  after  him  a  part  of  the  host 
of  heaven,  they  found  set  forth  by  the  parable  of  the  Unjust  Steward. 
Satan  was  the  chief  steward  over  God's  house,  w^hom  he  deposed  from 
his  place  of  highest  trust,  and  who  then  drew  after  him  the  other  angels 
with  the  suggestion  of  lighter  tasks  and  relief  from  the  burden  of  their 
imposed  duties.* 

But,  though  not  testifying  to  evils  at  all  so  grave  in  the  devisers  of 
the  scheme,  nor  leading  altogether  out  of  the  region  of  Christian  truth, 
yet  sufficiently  injurious  to  the  sober  interpretation  of  the  parables,  is 
such  a  theory  concerning  thWm  as  that  entertained,  and  in  actual  expo- 
sition carried  out  by  Cocceius,  and  his  followers  of  what  we  may  call  the 
historico-prophetical  school.  By  the  parables,  they  say,  and  so  far  they 
have  right,  are  declared  the  mysteries  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  But 
then  laying  hold  of  the  term,  kingdom  of  God,  and  understanding  it  in 
far  too  exclusive  a  sense,  they  are  determined  to  find  in  every  one  of  the 
parables  a  part  of  the  history  of  that  kingdom's  progressive  development 
in  the  world,  to  the  remotest  times.  They  will  not  allow  any  to  be 
merely  for  exhortation,  for  reproof,  for  instruction  in  righteousness,  but 
affirm  all  to  be  historico-prophetical.  Thus,  to  let  one  of  them  speak 
for  himself,  in  the  remarkable  words  of  Krummacher,| — "  The  parables 
of  Jesus  have  not  primarily  a  moral,  but  a  politico- religious,  or  theocra- 
tic purpose.  To  use  a  comparison,  we  may  consider  the  kingdom  of 
God  carried  forward  under  his  guidance,  as  the  action,  gradually  unfold- 
ing itself,  of  an  Epos,  whose  first  germ  lay  prepared  long  beforehand 
in  the  Jewish  economy  of  the  Old  Testament,  but  which  through  him 
began  to  unfold  itself,  and  will  continue  to  do  so  to  the  end  of  time.  The 
name  and  superscription  of- the  Epos  is,  The  kingdom  of  God.  The 
parables  belong  essentially  to  the  Gospel  of  the  kingdom,  not  merely  as 
containing  its  doctrine,  but  its  progressive  development.  They  con- 
nect themselves  with  certain  fixed  periods  of  that  development,  and,  as 
soon  as  these  periods  are  completed,  lose  themselves  in   the  very  com- 

*  Neander,  Kirch.  Gesch.,  v.  5.  p.  1082.  They  dealt  more  perversely,  and  at 
the  same  time  more  characteristically  still,  with  the  parable  of  the  Servant  that  owed  the 
ten  thousand  talents  {Ihid,  v.  5.  p.  1122) :  This  servant  too,  with  whom  the  king 
reckons,  is  Satan  or  the  Demiurgus,  his  wife  and  children  whom  the  king  orders  to  be 
sold,  the  first  his  Sophia  or  intelligence,  the  second  the  angels  subject  to  him.  God 
pitied  him,  and  did  not  take  from  him  his  higher  intelligence,  his  subjects  or  his  goods ; 
he  promising,  if  God  would  have  patience  with  him,  to  create  so  great  a  number  of 
men  as  should  supply  the  place  of  the  fallen  angels.  Therefore  God  gave  him  per- 
mission that  for  six  days,  the  six  thousand  years  of  the  present  world,  he  should  bring 
to  pass  what  he  could  with  the  world  which  he  had  created — But  this  will  suffice. 

t  Not  the  Krummacher  who  is  now,  or  was  of  late,  so  popular  in  England,  but  his 
father,  himself  the  author  of  a  volume  of  very  graceful  original  parables. 

4 


42         ON  THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  PARABLES 

pletion  :  that  is,  considered  as  independent  portions  of  the  Epos,  remain- 
ing for  us  only  in  the  image  and  external  letter."  He  must  mean,  of 
course,  in  the  same  manner  and  degree  as  all  other  fulfilled  prophecy — 
in  the  light  of  such  accomplished  prophecy,  he  would  say,  they  must 
henceforth  be  regarded. 

Boyle  gives  some,  though  a  very  moderate  countenance,  to  the  same 
opinion,  saying  of  the  parables,  "  Some,  if  not  most,  do,  like  those  oysters 
that,  besides  the  meat  they  afford  us,  contain  pearls,  not  only  include 
excellent  moralities,  but  comprise  important  prophecies  ;"  and  having 
adduced  tlie  Mustard  Seed  and  the  Wicked  tlusbandmen  as  plainly  con- 
taining such  prophecies,  he  goes  on,  "  I  despair  not  to  see  unheeded 
prophecies  disclosed  in  others  of  them."*  Vitringa's  Elucidation  of  the 
Parables -f  is  a  practical  application  of  this  scheme  of  interpretation,  and 
one  which  certainly  is  not  calculated  to  give  one  a  very  favourable  opinion 
of  it.  Asa  specimen,  the  servant  owing  the  ten  thousand  talents,  (Matt. 
xviii.  23,)  is  the  Pope,  or  line  of  Popes,  placed  in  highest  trust  in  the 
Church,  but  who,  misusing  the  powers  committed  to  them,  were  warned 
by  the  invasion  of  Goths,  Lombards,  and  other  barbarians,  of  judgment 
at  the  door,  and  indeed  seemed  given  into  their  hands  for  punishment ; 
but  being  mercifully  delivered  from  this  fear  of  imminent  destruction  at 
the  time  of  Charlemagne,  so  far  from  repenting  and  amending,  on  the 
contrary,  now  more  than  ever  oppressed  and  maltreated  the  true  servants 
of  God,  and  who  therefore  should  be  delivered  over  to  an  irreversible 
doom.  He  gives  a  yet  more  marvellous  explanation  of  the  Merchant 
seeking  goodly  pearls,  this  pearl  of  price  being  the  church  of  Geneva  ! 
and  the  doctrine  of  Calvin  opposed  to  all  the  abortive  pearls,  that  is,  to 
all  the  other  reformed  Churches.  Other  examples  may  be  found  in 
Cocceius — an  interpretation,  for  instance,  of  the  Ten  Virgins,  after  this 
same   fashion.*     Deyling  has  an  interesting  essay  on  this  school   of 

*  On  the  Style  of  the  Holy  Scriptures ;  Fifth  Objection.  There  is  nothing  new 
however  in  this  scheme,  for  it  is  evident  from  many  passages,  that  Origen  had  very 
much  the  same  belief.  I  would  refer  particularly  to  what  he  says  on  the  parable 
of  the  Labourers  in  the  Vineyard,  {Comm.  in  jSIatth.  xx.,)  where  he  seems  to  labour 
under  the  sense  of  some  great  undisclosed  mystery  concerning  the  future  destinies  of 
the  kingdom  of  God,  lying  hidden  "in  that  parable.  St.  Ambrose  {Ajmlog.  Alt. 
David,  c.  57)  gives  a  strange  historico-prophetical  interpretation  of  Nathan's  parable 
of  the  Ewe  Lamb:  and  Hippolytus,  (De  Antichristo,  c.  57,)  of  the  Unjust  Judge. 

t  Erkldrung  der  Farabolen. — Being  published,  not  like  most  of  his  other  works  in 
Latin,  but  originally  in  Dutch,  it  is  far  less  known,  as  indeed  it  deserves  to  be,  than 
his  other  oftentimes  very  valuable  works.  I  have  made  use  of  a  German  translation, 
Frankfort,  1717.  The  volume  consists  of  more  than  a  thousand  rather  closely-printed 
pages,  and  has  wonderfully  little  grain  to  be  winnowed  out  from  a  most  unreasonable 
proportion  of  chaff. 

t  Schol.  in  Matth.  xxv.     More  are  to  be  found  in  Gitrtler's  S'yst.  Theol.  Froph.; 


PARABLES  NOT  L\  THE  SCRIPTURES.  43 

interpreters,  and  passes  a  severe,  though  certainly  not  undeserved,  con- 
demnation on  them.*  Prophetical,  no  doubt,  many  of  the  parables  are, 
for  they  declare  how  the  new  element  of  life,  which  the  Lord  was  bring- 
ing into  men's  hearts  and  into  the  world,  would  work — the  future  influ- 
ences and  results  of  his  doctrine — that  the  little  mustard-seed  would 
grow  to  a  great  tree — that  the  leaven  would  continue  working  till  it  had 
leavened  the  whole  lump.  But  they  declare  not  so  much  the  facts  as 
the  laws  of  the  kingdom,  or  the  facts  only  so  far  as  by  giving  insight 
into  the  laws,  they  impart  a  knowledge  of  the  facts.  Historico-prophe- 
tical  are  only  a  few  ;  as  for  instance,  that  of  the  Wicked  Husbandmen 
which  Boyle  adduced,  in  which  there  is  a  clear  prophecy  of  the  death 
of  Christ ;  as  that  again  of  the  Marriage  of  the  King's  Son,  in  which 
there  is  an  equally  clear  announcement  of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem, 
and  the  transfer  of  the  privileges  of  the  kingdom  of  God  from  the  Jews 
to  the  Gentiles.  "-But  this  subject  will  again  present  itself  to  us  when 
we  have  arrived  at  the  conclusion  of  the  seven  parables  contained  in 
the  13th  of  St.  Matthew. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

ON  OTHER  PARABLES  BESIDES  THOSE  IN  THE  SCRIPTURES. 

However  the  most  perfect  specimens  of  this  form  of  composition, 
those  by  which  the  comparative  value  of  all  other  in  the  like  kind  are 
to  be  measured,  are  to  be  found  in  that  Book  which  is  the  most  perfect 
of  all  books,  yet  they  do  not  belong  exclusively  to  it.  The  parable,  as 
Jerome  has  noted,  is  among  the  favourite  vehicles  for  conveying  moral 
truth  in  all  the  East.  Our  Lord  took  possession  of  it,  honoured  it  by 
making  it  his  own,  by  using  it  as  the  vehicle  for  the  very  highest  truth 
of  all.  But  there  were  parables  before  the  parables  which  issued  from 
his  lips.  It  seems  to  belong  to  our  subject  to  say  a  little  concerning 
those,  which,  though  they  did  not  give  the  pattern  to,  yet  preceded  his, 

as  at  pp.  542,  676.  Deusingius,  Teelman,  D'Outrein,  Solomon  Van  Till,  may  be 
named  among  the  other  chief  writers  of  this  school. 

*  Ohss.  Sac,  V.  5,  p.  3.31,  seq.  He  notes  how  the  same  scheme  of  interpi'etation 
has  been  applied  by  the  same  school  of  interpreters  to  the  miracles.  Of  this,  various 
examples  may  be  found  in  Lampe's  Commentary  on  St.  John, — see,  for  instance,  on  the 
feeding  of  the  five  thousand.  (John  vi.)  They  form  the  weakest  part  of  a  book  which 
contains  in  other  respects  much  that  is  admirable. 


44  ON  OTHER  PARABLES  BESIDES 

concerning  those  also  which  were  formed  more  or  less  immediately  on 
the  suggestion  and  in  the  imitation  of  his,  on  the  Jewish,  that  is,  and  the 
Christian.     And  first  upon  the  Jewish  parables. 

Some  indeed  have  denied,  but  against  all  testimony,  that  this  method 
of  teaching  by  parables  was  current  among  the  Jews  before  our  Saviour's 
time.  To  this  they  had  been  mainly  led  by  the  fear  lest  it  should  de- 
tract from  his  glory,  to  suppose  that  he  had  availed  himself  of  a  manlier 
of  teaching  already  in  use.  Yet  surely  the  anxiety  which  has  been 
often  shown,  and  of  which  this  is  a  specimeUj  to  cut  off  the  JiOrd's 
teaching  from  all  living  connection  with  his  age  and  country  is  very 
idle,  and  the  suspicion  with  which  parallels  from  the  uninspired  Jewish 
writino-s  have  been  regarded,  altogether  misplaced.  It  is  the  same 
anxiety  which  would  cut  off  the  Mosaic  legislation  and  institutions  alto- 
gether from  Egypt  ;*  which  cannot  with  honesty  be  done,  and  which, 
in  truth,  there  is  no  object  whatever  in  attempting.  For  if  Christianity 
be  indeed  the  world-religion,  it  must  gather  into  one  all  dispersed  rays 
of  light :  it  must  appropriate  to  itself  all  elements  of  truth  which  are 
anywhere  scattered  abroad,  not  thus  adopting  what  is  alien,  but  rather 
claiming  what  is  its  own.f  There  cannot  be  a  doubt  that  our  blessed 
Lord  so  spake,  as  that  his  doctrine,  according  to  its  outward  form  should 
commend  itself  to  his  countrymen.  There  were  inner  obstacles  enough 
to  their  receivino-  of  it  ;  need  was  it  therefore  that  outwardly  it  should 
be  attractive.  Thus  he  appealed  to  proverbs  in  common  use  among 
them.  He  quoted  the  traditionary  speeches  of  their  elder  Rabbis,  to 
refute,  to  enlarge,  or  to  correct  them.  When  he  found  the  theological 
terms  of  their  schools  capable  of  bearing  the  burden  of  the  new  truth 
which  he  laid  upon  them,  he  willingly  used  them  ;X  and  in  using,  did 
not  deny  their  old  meaning,  yet  at  the  same  time  glorified  and  trans- 
formed it  into  something  far  higher.  He  used  them,  but  all  his  words 
being  creative,  and  he  making  all  things  new,  he  breathed  into  them 
also  a  new  spirit  of  life.  The  prayer,  "  Thy  kingdom  come,"  formed 
already  a  part  of  the  Jewish  liturgy,  yet  not  the  less  was  it  a  new  prayer 

*  The  attempt  fails  even  when  made  by  so  able  and  learned  a  man  as  Witsius.  It 
ia  not  from  grounds  such  as  he  occupies  in  his  JEgyptiaca,  that  books  like  Sfencer's 
De  Legibus  Ilebraorum  can  be  answered. 

t  In  the  words  of  Clement  {Strom.,  1.  1,  c.  13) :  Awarh  fi  dh'ideia  awayayctv  ra 
o'iKtia  crwrpiiara,  Kav  £if  t>iv  oXXoJaTrfjv  tjcTrtiri)  y^v. 

t  There  is  an  interesting  Essay  in  this  point  of  view  by  Schoettgen,  (Har.  Heb.,v. 
2,  p.  8^3,)  with  the  title  Christus  Eabhinorum  summus.  In  the  same  way  the  whole 
colouring  of  Ezekiel's  visions,  and  the  symbols  which  he  uses,  are  Persian  and  Babylo- 
nian throughout,  they  belong,  that  is,  to  the  world  in  which  he  lived  and  moved  ;  yet 
the  distinction  remains  as  wide  as  ever  between  a  Magian  or  Chaldaean  soothsayer 
and  a  prophet  of  the  living  God. 


THOSE  IN  THE  SCRIPTURES.  45 

on  the  lips  of  all  who  had  realized  in  any  measure  the  idea  of  the 
kingdom,  and  what  was  signified  by  the  coming  of  that  kingdom,  as 
he  first  had  enabled  them  to  realize  it.  So,  "  Peace  be  unto  you  !  " 
was  no  doubt  an  ordinary  salutation  among  the  Jews  long  before,  yet 
having  how  much  deeper  a  significance,  and  one  how  altogether  new 
upon  his  lips  who  was  our  Peace,  and  who,  first  causing  us  to  enter  our- 
selves into  the  peace  of  God,  enabled  us  truly  to  wish  peace,  and  to 
speak  peace,  to  our  brethren.  In  like  manner  also  it  is  not  to  be  doubted 
that  a  proselyte  was  in  the  Jewish  schools  entitled,  "  a  new  creature," 
and  his  passing  over  to  Judaism  was  called  "  a  new  birth  ;"*  yet  were 
these  terms  used,  as  far  as  we  can  see,  to  express  a  change  only  in  his 
outward  relations — that  his  kinsmen  were  his  kinsmen  no  more  ;  it  re- 
mained for  Christ  and  his  apostles  to  appropriate  them  to  the  higher 
mysteries  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Nor  less  is  it  certain  that  the 
illustrating  of  doctrines  by  the  help  of  parables,  or  briefer  comparisons, 
was  eminently  in  use  among  the  Jewish  teachers,"}"  so  that  it  might  also 
be  said  of  them  as  of  him,  that  without  a  parable  they  taught  nothing. 
The  very  formulas  with  which  their  parables  were  introduced  were  the 
same  as  those  we  find  in  the  Gospels  ;  for  instance,  the  question,  "  Where- 
unto  shall  I  liken  it  ?"  is  of  continual  recurrence.  But  what  then  ?  it 
was  not  in  the  newness  of  the  forms,  but  in  the  newness  of  the  spirit, 
that  the  glory  and  superior  excellency  of  Christ's  doctrine  consisted. 
As  some  may  not  be  displeased  to  see  what  these  Jewish  parables 
are  like,  I  will  quote,  not,  as  sometimes  has  been  done,  the  worst,  but 
the  best  which  1  have  had  the  fortune  to  meet.  The  following  is  occa- 
sioned by  a  question  which  has  arisen,  namely.  Why  the  good  so  often 
die  young  ?  It  is  answered,  that  God  foresees  that  if  they  lived  they 
would  fall  into  sin.  "  To  what  is  this  like?  It  is  like  a  king  who, 
walking  in  his  garden,  saw  some  roses  which  were  yet  buds,  breathing 
an  ineffable  sweetness.  He  thought,  If  these  shed  such  sweetness  while 
yet  they  are  buds,  what  will  they  do  when  they  are  fully  blown  ?  After 
a  while,  the  king  entered  the  garden  anew,  thinking  to  find  the  roses 
now  blown,  and  to  delight  himself  with  their  fragrance;  but  arriving  at 
the  place,  he  found  them  pale  and  withered,  and  yielding  no  smell.  He 
exclaimed  with  regret,  '  Had  I  gathered  them  while  yet  tender  and 
young,  and  while  they  gave  forth  their  sweetness,  I   might  have  de- 

*  Schoettgen's  Hor.  Heh.,  v.  1,  pp.  328,  704. 

t  ViTRiNGA,  De  Synagogd,  p.  678,  seq.  Hillel  and  Schammai  were  the  most 
illustrious  teachers  by  parables  before  the  time  of  our  Saviour ;  R.  Meir  immediately 
after.  With  this  last,  as  the  tradition  goes,  the  power  of  inventing  parables  nota- 
bly declined.  This  is  not  hard  to  understand.  The  fig-tree  of  the  Jewish  people 
was  withered,  and  could  put  forth  no  fruit  any  more.     (Matt.  xxi.  19.) 


46  ON  OTHER  PARABLES  BESIDES 

lighted  myself  with  them,  but  now  I  have  no  pleasure  in  them.'  The 
next  year  the  king  walked  in  his  garden,  and  finding  roaebuds  scatter- 
ing fragrance,  he  commanded  his  servants,  '  Gather  them,  that  I  may 
enjoy  them,  before  they  wither,  as  last  year  they  did.'  '^*  The  next  is 
ingenious  enough,  though  a  notable  specimen  of  Jewish  self-righteous- 
ness : — "  A  man  had  three  friends :  being  summoned  to  appear  before 
the  king,  he  was  terrified,  and  looked  for  an  advocate  :  the  first,  whom 
he  had  counted  the  best,  altogether  refused  to  go  with  him  ;  another 
replied  that  he  would  accompany  him  to  the  door  of  the  palace,  but 
could  not  speak  for  him;  the  third,  whom  he  had  held  in  least  esteem, 
appeared  with  him  before  the  king,  and  pleaded  for  him  so  well  as  to 
procure  his  deliverance.  So  every  man  has  three  friends,  when  sum- 
moned by  death  before  God,  his  Judge  :  the  first,  whom  he  most  prized, 
his  money,  will  not  go  with  him  a  step ;  the  second,  his  friends  and 
kinsmen,  accompany  him  to  the  tomb,  but  no  further,  nor  can  they  de- 
liver him  in  the  judgment ;  while  the  third,  whom  he  had  in  least  es- 
teem, the  Law  and  good  works,  appear  with  him  before  the  king  and 
deliver  him  from  condemnation. "f  But  this  is  in  a  nobler  strain  ;  it  is 
suggested  by  those  words,  "  In  thy  light  shall  we  see  light."  "  As  a 
man  travelling  by  night  kindled  his  torch,  which,  when  it  was  extin- 
guished, he  again  lit,  and  again,  but  at  length  exclaimed,  *  How  long 
shall  I  weary  myself  in  my  way  ?  better  to  wait  till  the  sun  arise,  and 
when  the  sun  is  shining  I  will  pursue  my  journey' — so  the  Israelites 
were  oppressed  in  Egypt,  but  delivered  by  Moses  and  Aaron.  Again 
they  were  subdued  by  the  Babylonians,  when  Chananiah,  Misael,  and 
Azariah  delivered  them.  Again  they  were  subdued  by  the  Grecians, 
when  Mattathias  and  his  sons  helped  them.  At  length  the  Romans 
overcame  them,  when  they  cried  to  God,  '  We  are  weary  with  the  con- 
tinual alternation  of  oppression  and  deliverance  ;  we  ask  no  further 
that  mortal  man  may  shine  upon  us,  but  God,  who  is  holy  and  blessed 
for  ever.'  "^ — There  is  a  fine  one  of  the  fox,  who  seeing  the  fish  in 
great  trouble,  darting  hither  and  thither,  while  the  stream  was  being 
drawn  with  nets,  proposed  to  them  to  leap  on  dry  land.  This  is  put  in 
a  Rabbi's  mouth,  who,  when  the   Grneco-Syrian  kings  were  threatening 

*  Sciioettgen's  Hor.  Heb.,  v.  1,  p.  682. 

t  Schoettgen's  Ilor.  Ileh.,  v.  1,  p.  1129.  How  different  is  this  view  of  the  Law 
as  an  advocate  with  the  Judge,  from  that  given  by  our  Lord,  (Matt.  v.  25,  26.) 
who  compares  it  to  an  adversary  dragging  us  before  a  tribunal  where  we  are  certain 
to  be  worsted  !  This  parable,  like  so  much  else  that  is  to  be  found  in  the  Rabbini- 
cal books,  reappears  in  many  quarters  ;  in  the  Eastern  Romance,  Barlaam  and  Jo- 
sephat,  c.  13  ;  and  among  the  traditional  sayings  of  Mahomet.  (See  Von  Hammer's 
Fundgruben  d.  Orients,  v.  1.  p.  315) 

t  Scuoettgen's  Hor.  Heb.,  v.  2,  p.  691. 


THOSE  IN  THE  SCRIPTURES.  47 

with  death  all  who  observed  the  law,  was  counselled  by  his  friends  to 
abandon  it.  He  would  say,  "  We,  like  the  fish  in  the  stream,  are  indeed 
in  danger  now,  but  yet,  while  we  continue  in  obedience  to  God,  we  are 
in  our  element ; — but  if,  to  escape  the  danger,  we  forsake  that,  then  we 
inevitably  perish."* — Again,  there  is  one  of  much  tenderness,  to  ex- 
plain why  a  proselyte  is  dearer  to  the  Lord  than  even  a  Levite.  Such 
proselyte  is  compared  to  a  wild  goat,  which,  brought  up  in  the  desert. 
joins  itself  freely  to  the  flock,  and  which  is  cherished  by  the  shepherd 
with  especial  love  ;  since,  that  his  flock,  which  from  its  youth  he  had 
put  forth  in  the  morning  and  brought  back  at  evening,  should  love  him, 
was  nothing  strange  ;  but  this — that  the  goat,  brought  up  in  deserts  and 
mountains,  should  attach  itself  to  him,  demanded  an  especial  return  of 
affection.")" — There  are  besides  these  a  multitude  of  briefer  ones,  deserv- 
ing the  title  of  similitudes  rather  than  of  parables.  Thus  there  is  one, 
urging  collection  of  spirit  in  prayer,  to  this  effect : — "  If  a  man  brought 
a  request  to  an  earthly  monarch,  but  instead  of  making  it,  were  to  turn 
aside  and  talk  with  his  neighbour,  might  not  the  king  be  justly  dis- 
pleased ?  ":{: — In  another,  the  death  common  to  all,  and  the  doom  after 
death  so  different  to  each,  is  likened  to  a  king's  retinue  entering  a  city 
at  a  single  gate,  but  afterward  lodged  within  it  very  differently,  accord- 
ing to  their  several  dignity. § — There  is  a  singular  one  to  explain,  why 
God  has  not  told  which  command  should  have  the  greatest  reward  for 
its  keeping. II — In  another  it  is  shown  how  body  and  soul  are  partners 
in  sin,  and  so  will  justly  be  partners  in  punishment. IF 

These,  with  two  or  three  more,  which,  bearing  some  resemblance  to 

*  Schoettgen's  Hor.  Heb.,  v.  1,  p.  189. 

+  Schoettgen's  Hor.  Heb.,  v.  1,  p.  377.  This  too  on  the  resurrection  is  good 
(CoccEius,  Excerpt.  Gem.,  p.  232) :  R.  Ammin  replied  to  a  Sadducee  who  said, 
Numquid  pulvis  vivet  ? — Rem  tibi  hac  parabola  explicabo.  Rex  quidam  jusserat  a 
servis  suis  palatium  in  loco,  qui  aquS  et  limo  careret,  extrui.  Factum.  Eo  collapso, 
jussit  id  resBdificari  in  loco  ubi  utriusque  erat  copia.  Negant  se  posse.  Turn  ille 
iratus,  Quum  abesset  aqua  et  limus,  potuistis :  nunc  quum  utrumque  adsit,  non  possetis  ? 

I  Schoettgen's  Hor.  Heb.,  v.  1,  p.  656.  The  same  comparison  with  slight  va- 
riation occurs  in  Chiysostom,  {Horn.  1,  in  Oziam,)  and  again  with  further  modification 
Ham.  51,  in  Matth. 

§  Schoettgen's  Hor.  Heb.,  v.  1,  p.  388. 

II  Ibid.,  V.  l.p.  187 

If  CoccEius  {Excerpt.  Gem.,  p.  232) :  Antoninus  cum  R.  Jehuda  sancto  sic  collo- 
quutus  aliquando  est.  Corpus  inquit  et  anima  a  judicio  se  liberare  possunt.  Quomo- 
do  1  Corpus  dicat,  Anima  peccavit,  nam  ex  quo  ilia  a  me  discessit,  ecce  lapidis  instar 
sine  sensu  in  sepulcro  jacui.  Anima  autem  dicat,  Corpus  peccavit,  nam  ex  quo  illius 
laxata  sum  nexu,  ecce  volito  per  aerem  aviculse  in  morem.  Ad  ha;c  Rabbi,  Parabo- 
1am,  iniquit,  tibi  dabo.  Rex  mortalis  horto  cuidam  amoenissimo,  in  quo  maturi  frac- 
tus  essent,  duos  custodes  apposuit,  claudum  et  caecum.     Claudus,  visis  fructibus,  caecum 


48  ox  OTHER  PARABLES  BESIDES 

Evangelical  parables,  will  be  noted  in  their  due  places,  are  the  most 
memorable  which  I  have  met.  When  these  last  are  brought  into  com- 
parison, I  think  it  will  be  acknowledged  that  the  resemblance  is  one 
lying  merely  on  the  surface,  and  is  nothing  so  extraordinary,  as  some 
writers  have  given  out.  Some,  indeed,  have  thought  the  similarity  so 
great,  as  needed  in  some  way  or  other  to  be  accounted  for,  and  have 
supposed  that  our  Lord  adopted  those  which  he  found  in  any  way  fitted 
for  his  purpose,  remodelling  and  improving  them  as  they  passed  under 
his  hands.  Others  suppose  that  the  Jewish  parables  are  of  later  origin 
than  those  in  the  Gospels,  and  that  the  Rabbis,  while  they  searched  the 
Christian  books  for  the  purpose  of  ridiculing  or  gainsaying  them,  enriched 
themselves  with  their  spoils,  borrowing  sayings  and  narrations  which 
they  afterwards  used,  concealing  carefully  the  source  from  whence  they 
were  derived.*  But  neither  of  these  suppositions  seem  necessary. 
Lightfoot  has  a  collection  of  such  sayings  under  the  title, —  Wit  stolen 
by  the  Jews  out  of  the  Gosjiel  jf  but  neither  here,  nor  in  the  parallels 
elsewhere  adduced,  is  the  resemblance  so  striking  as  to  carry  any  per- 
suasion to  my  mind,  of  the  necessity,  or  even  the  probability,  of  a  com- 
mon origin.  The  hatred  and  scorn  with  which  the  Jews  regarded  the 
sacred  books  of  the  Christians,  an  hatred  which  extended  to  all  foreign 
literature,  but  which  was  felt  with  especial  force  in  regard  to  them,:]: 
makes  this  last  supposition  extremely  improbable. 

The  resemblance,  after  all,  is  merely  such  as  must  needs  have  found 
place,  or  at  least  could  with  difficulty  have  been  avoided,  when  the  same 
external  life,  and  the  same  outward  nature,  were  used  as  the  common 
storehouse,  from  whence  images,  illustrations,  and  examples  were  drawn 
alike  by  all.  Perhaps  it  will  be  as  well  at  once  to  consider  one  of  these 
Talmudical  parables,  frequently  compared  with  one  spoken  by  our 
Lord.  It  is  one  of  the  best  of  those  which  pretend  to  any  similarity 
with  his,  and  has  been  sometimes  likened  to  that  latter  part  of  the  Marriage 
of  the  King's  Son,  which  relates  to  the  wedding  garment.  "  The  Rabbis 
have  delivered  what  follows,  on  Eccl.  xii.  7,  where  it  is  written,  '  The 
spirit  shall  return  unto  God  who  gave  it.' — He  gave  it  to  thee  unspot- 

admonuit,  ipsum  uti  in  humeros  reciperet,  quo  illos  deceiperet,  et  illi  inter  se  devora- 
rent.  Insedit  igilur  claudus  caeci  cervicibus,  decerptosque  fructus  absuniseiuut. 
Aliquanto  post  tempore  venit  Dominus  horti  et  de  fructibus  requisivit.  Cum  caecus, 
sibi  oculos  non  esse  ut  videret,  et  claudus,  sibi  pedes  deesse,  ut  accederet.  Quid  ille  ? 
Quum  jussisset  hunc  illius  humeris  excipi,  utrumque  simul  judicavit  et  plexit.  Consi- 
militer  faciei  Deus  :  anima  coipoii  indita,pariter  animam  et  corpus  judicabit. 

*  So  Carpzow,  Storr,  Lightfoot,  and  Pfeiffer,  {Theol.  Jud.  atque  Mohamm.,  th. 
40-43  ) 

t  Eruhhin,  chap.  20. 

t  Gfrorer's  Urchri>itenlhum,v.  1,  p.  115,  seq. 


THOSE  IN  THE  SCRIPTURES.  49 

ted,  see  that  thou  restore  it  unspotted  to  him  again.  It  is  like  a  mortal 
king,  who  distributed  royal  vestments  to  his  servants.  Then  those  that 
were  wise,  folded  them  carefully  up,  and  laid  them  by  in  the  wardrobe  ; 
but  those  that  were  foolish  went  their  way,  and,  clothed  in  these  garments, 
engaged  in  their  ordinary  work.  After  a  while,  the  king  required  his 
garments  again  ;  the  wise  returned  them  white  as  they  had  received  them  ; 
but  the  foolish,  soiled  and  stained.  Then  the  king  was  well  pleased  with 
the  wise,  and  said,  '  Let  the  vestments  be  laid  up  in  the  wardrobe, 
and  let  these  depart  in  peace  ;'  but  he  was  angry  with  the  foolish,  and 
said,  '  Let  the  vestments  be  given  to  be  washed,  and  those  servants  be 
cast  into  prison :' — so  will  the  Lord  do  with  the  bodies  of  the  righteous, 
as  it  is  written,  Isai.  Ivii.  2  ;  with  their  souls,  1  Sam.  xxv.  29  ;  but  with 
the  bodies  of  the  wicked,  Isai.  xlviii.  22  ;  Ivii.  21 ;  and  with  their  souls, 
1  Sam.  xxv.  29."*  But  with  the  exception  of  a  king  appearing  in  each, 
and  the  matter  of  praise  and  condemnation  turning  on  a  garment,  what 
resemblance  is  there  here  ?  In  fact,  if  we  penetrate  a  little  below  the 
surface,  there  is  more  real  sunilarity  between  this  parable  and  that  of 
the  Talents,  as  in  each  case  there  is  the  restoration  of  a  deposit,  and  a 
dealing  with  the  servants  according  to  their  conduct  in  respect  of  that 
deposit.  But  then,  how  remote  a  likeness  !  and  how  capricious  ihe 
whole  !  The  distributing  of  garments  which  were  not  to  be  worn,  and 
afterwards  reclaiming  them, — what  analogy  has  this  to  any  thing  in 
actual  life  ?"!■ — how  different  from  the  probability  that  a  nobleman,  going 
into  a  distant  country,  should  distribute  his  goods  to  his  servants,  and 
returning,  demand  from  them  an  account.:}: — There  are  no  parables 
in  the  apocryphal  Gospels.     Indeed,  where  a  moral  element  is  altoge- 

*  Meuschen,  N.  T.  ex  Talm.  illust.,  p  117  ;  see  others,  pp.  Ill,  194,  195  ;  and 
more  in  Westein's  N.  T.,  pp.  727,  765.  Those  given  by  Otto,  a  converted  Jew, 
who  afierwards  relapsed  into  Judaism,  in  a  book  entitled  Gali  Bazia,  have  been 
tampered  with  by  him  for  the  purpose  of  making  the  resemblance  between  them  and 
the  Evangelical  parables  more  close,  else  they  would  be  remarkable  indeed.  (Pfeif- 
fer's  Theol.  Jud.,  th.  39.) 

t  This,  with  so  many  other  of  the  rabbinical  parables,  sins  almost  against  every 
rule  given  as  needful  to  be  observed  in  such  an  invented  tale,  if  it  is  to  carry  any 
power  of  conviction  with  it,  by  the  author  of  the  treatise.  Ad  Heiennium,i-  9  :  Ver- 
isimilis  narratio  erit,  si  ut  mos,  ut  opinio,  ut  natura  postulat,  dicemus ;  si  spatia  tem- 
porum,  personarum  dignitates, consiliorum  rationes,  locorum  opportunitates  constabunt, 
ne  refelli  possit,  aut  temporis  parum  fuisse,  aut  causam  nuUam,  aut  locum  idoneum 
non  fuisse,  aut  homines  ipsos  facere  aut  pati  non  potuisse. — But  how  wonderfully  do 
all  these  requisites  meet  in  the  parables  of  the  New  Testament ! 

t  Unger  {De  Farab.  Jes.  Nat.,  p.  162)  observes  that  he  has  gone  into  this  com- 
parison of  the  Evangelical  with  I  he  Jewish  parables, — Partim  ut  absterreremur  a 
solito  rabbinicos  locos  doctrinte  Jesu  quodammodo  sequiparandi  pruritu  ac  levitate, 
interdum  ad  interpretationem  juvandam  parum  utili,  .  .  .  partim  ut  inde  magis  ag- 
nosceremus  parabolarum  Jesu  praestantiam. 


50  ON  OTHER  PARABLES  BESIDES 

ther  wanting,  as  in  these  worthless  forgeries,  it  was  only  to  be  expected 
that  this,  as  every  other  form  of  communicating  spiritual  truth,  should 
be  absent  from  them. 

This  much  in  regard  of  the  Jewish  parables.  Among  the  Fathers 
of  the  Christian  Church  there  are  not  many,  as  far  as  I  am  aware,  who 
have  professedly  constructed  parables  for  the  setting  forth  of  spiritual 
mysteries.  Two  or  three  such  parables  are  to  be  found  in  the  third 
book  of  the  Shepherd  of  Hernias.  The  whole  of  that  third  book  is  in- 
deed parabolical,  as  it  sets  forth  spiritual  truths  under  sensuous  images, 
only  it  does  this  chiefly  in  visions,  that  is,  parables  for  the  eye  rather 
than  for  the  ear.  There  are,  however,  parables  in  the  strictest  sense  of 
the  word  ;  this  for  example,*  which  is,  I  think,  an  improved  form  of  the 
rabbinical  parable  last  quoted  :  "  Restore  to  the  Lord  the  spirit  entire 
as  thou  hast  received  it :  for  if  thou  gavest  to  a  fuller  a  garment  which 
was  entire,  and  desiredst  so  to  receive  it  again,  but  the  fuller  restored  it 
to  thee  rent,  wouldest  thou  receive  it  ?  wouldest  thou  not  say  in  anger, 
'  I  delivered  to  thee  my  garment  entire,  wherefore  hast  thou  torn  it  and 
made  it  useless  ?  It  is  now,  on  account  of  the  rent  which  thou  hast  made 
in  it,  of  no  more  service  to  me.'  If  thou  then  grievest  for  thy  garment, 
and  complainest  because  thou  receivest  it  not  entire  again,  how,  thinkest 
thou,  will  the  Lord  deal  with  thee,  who  gave  thee  a  perfect  spirit,  but 
which  spirit  thou  hast  marred,  so  that  it  can  be  of  no  more  service  to  its 
Lord  ?  for  it  became  useless  when  it  was  corrupted  by  thee." — There 
are  a  good  many  parables,  regularly  brought  forward  as  such,  in  the 
writings  of  Ephraem  Syrus,  but  such  of  these  as  I  am  acquainted  with, 
are  very  far  from  felicitous :  indeed  they  could  scarcely  be  tamer  than 
they  are.* — Eadmer,  a  disciple  of  Anselm,  has  preserved  a  sort  of 
basket  of  fragments  from  his  sermons  and  his  table-talk.  Among  these 
there  are  so  many  of  his  similitudes  and  illustrations  as  to  give  a  name 
to  the  whole  collection.:}:     There  are  not  a  few  complete  parables  here, 

*  Simil.  9,  32.,  cf  Simil.  5,  2. 

t  This  is  the  best  that  I  know,  of  which,  however,  I  only  judge  in  its  Latin 
translation :  Duo  homines  proficiscebantur  ad  quandain  civitatem,  quae  stadiis  abe- 
rat  triginta.  Cilm  auiem  jam  duo  aut  tria  confecissent  stadia,  ohtulit  se  in  via  locus, 
in  quo  sylvae  et  arbores  erant  umbrosae,  fluentaque  aquaruin,  multaque  ibidem  delec- 
tatio.  Qui  dum  contemplarentur  ista,  alter  quideni  ad  urbem  spectandam  contendens, 
instar  cursoris  locum  prajteribat ;  alter  vero,  ciim  constitisset  ut  contenipiaretur,  re- 
mansit.  Deinde  cum  prodire  jam  vellet  extra  aiborum  unibram,  caloros  tiinuit,  atque 
ita  diutius  ibidem  loci  dum  remaneret,  locique  simul  ainccnitate  sese  delectaret  atque 
occuparet,  beslia  ex  iis  quaj  in  sylva  commoranlur  prodiit,  apprehensumque  ipsum  per- 
traxit  in  suum  antrum:  alter  vero  qui  neque  iter  neglexisset,  neque  forma  arborum  se 
detineri  passus  esset,  recia  ad  urbem  perrexit.     Sec  also  ParcRnes.,  21,28. 

X  De  S.  Anselmi  Smilitudinibus.  It  is  published  at  the  end  of  the  Benedict,  edit, 
of  St.  Anselm.     I  do  not  know  whether  I  can  find  a  better  than  this,  upon  the  keep- 


THOSE  IN  THE  SCRIPTURES.  51 

though  none  perhaps  of  that  beauty  which  the  works  that  come  directly 
from  him  might  have  led  us  to  expect. 

Far  better  are  those  interspersed  through  the  Greek  religious  romance 
of  the  seventh  or  eighth  century,  Barlaam  and  Josaphat,  ascribed  with- 
out, I  believe,  any  sufficient  grounds,  to  St.  John  of  Damascus,  and  often 
printed  with  his  works.  They  have  been  justly  admired,*  yet  more 
than  one  of  them  is  certainly  not  original,  being  easily  traced  up  to  ear- 
lier sources.     A  very  interesting  one  will  be  found  in  the  note  below, -j- 

ing  of  the  heart  with  all  diligence,  of  which,  however,  I  can  quote  no  more  than  is 
necessary  for  giving  an  insight  into  the  whole  (c.  41)  :  Cor  etenim  nostrum  simile 
est  molendino  semper  molenti,  quod  Dominus  quidam  cuidam  servo  suo  custodiendum 
dedit :  prsecipiens  ei  ut  suam  tanti^m  annonam  in  eo  molat,  et  ex  eodem  quod  mol- 
uerit,  ipse  vivat.  Verum  illi  servo  quidam  inimicatur,  qui  si  quando  illud  vacuum 
invenerit,  aut  arenam  ibi  statim  projicit,  quae  illud  dissipat  ;  aut  picam,  quae  conglu- 
tinat  ;  aut  aliquid  quod  foedat ;  aut  paleam  quae  tantimi  illud  occupat.  Servus  igitur 
ille  si  molendinum  suum  bene  custodierit,  Dominique  sui  tantum  annonam  in  illo 
moluerit,  et  Domino  suo  serv'it,  sibique  ipsi  victum  acquirit.  Hoc  itaque  molendinum 
semper  aliquid  molens  cor  est  humanum,  assidue  aliquid  cogitans.     Cf.  c.  42,  46. 

*  See  DuNLOP's  History  of  Fiction,  London,  1845,  p.  40,  seq. 

t  Urbem  quandam  magnam  exstitisse  accepi,  in  qua  cives  hoc  in  more  et  institute 
positum  habebant,  ut  peregrinum  quendam  et  ignotum  virum,ac  legum  consuetudinum 
civitatis  omnino  rudem  et  ignarum  acciperent,  eumque  sibi  ipsis  regem  constituerent, 
penes  quern  per  unius  anni  curriculum  rerum  omnium  potestas  esset,  quique  libere  et 
sine  ullo  impedimento  quicquid  vellet,  faceret.  Post  autem,dum  ille  omni  prorsus  cura 
vacuus  degeret,  atque  in  luxu  et  deliciis  sine  ullo  metu  versaretur,  perpetuumque  sibi  reg- 
num  fore  existimaret,  repente  adversus  eum  insurgentes,  regiamque  ipsi  vestem  detra- 
hentes,  ac  nudum  per  toiam  urbem  tanquam  in  triumphum  agentes,  in  magnam  quan- 
dam et  longe  remotam  insulam  eum  relegabant,  in  qui  nee  victu  nee  indumentis  sup- 
petentibus,  fame  ac  nuditate  miserrime  premebatur,  voluptate  scilicet  atque  animi 
hilaritate,  quae  prseter  spem  ipsi  concessa  fuerat,  in  maerorem  rursus  praeter  spem  om- 
nem  et  expectationem  commutata.  Contig'it  ergo  ut  pro  antique  civium  illorum  more 
atque  institute  vir  quidam  magno  ingenii  acumine  prseditus  ad  regnum  ascisceretur. 
Qui  statim  subita  ea  felicitate,  quae  ipsi  obtigerat,haudquaquam  praeceps  abreptus,  nee 
eorum  qui  ante  se  regiam  dignitatem  obtinuerant,  misereque  ejecti  fuerant,  incuriam 
imitatus,  animo  anxio  et  solicito  id  agitabat,  quonam  pacto  rebus  suis  optime  consul- 
eret.  Dum  ergo  crebra  meditatione  haec  secum  versaret,  per  sapientissimum  quendam 
consiliarium  de  civium  consuetudine  ac  perpetui  exilii  loco  certior  factus  est:  quonam 
pacto  sine  ullo  errore  ipse  sibi  cavere  deberet,  intellexit  Cixm  igitur  hoc  cognovisset, 
futurumque  propediem,ut  ad  illam  insulam  ablegaretur,  atque  adventitium  illud  et  alie- 
num  regnum  aliis  relinqueret,  patefactis  thesauris  suis,  quorum  tunc  promptum  ac  libe- 
rum  usum  habebat,  aurique  atque  argenti  ac  preciosorum  lapidum  ingenti  mole  famulis 
quibusdam  quos  fidissimos  habebat,  tradita,  ad  earn  insulam,  ad  quam  abducendus  erat, 
praemisit.  Vertente  autem  anno  cives  commotii  seditione  nudum  eum  quemadmodCira 
superiores  reges,  in  exilium  miserunt.  Ac  caeteri  quidem  amentes,  et  brevis  temporis 
reges,  gravissima  fame  laborabant :  ille  contra  qui  opes  suas  praemiserat,  in  perpetua 
rerum  copia  vitam  ducens,  atque  infinita  voluptate  fruens,  perfidorum  ac  scelerato- 
rum  civium  metu  prorsus  abjecto,  sapientissimi  consilii  sui  nomine  beatum  se  praedica- 
bat.     Compare  1  Tim.  vi.  19. 


52  ON  OTHER  PARABLES  BESIDES 

Those  which  are  entitled  parables  in  the  writings  of  St.  Bernard,* 
which,  whether  they  be  his  or  no,  have  much  of  beauty  and  instruction 
in  them,  are  rather  allegories  than  parables,  and  so  do  not  claim  here  to 
be  considered.  But  if  parables,  which  are  professedly  such,  are  not  of 
frequent  occurrence  in  the  works  of  the  early  Church  writers,  the  para- 
bolical element  is,  notwithstanding,  very  predominant  in  their  teaching. 
This  was  only  to  be  expected,  especially  in  their  homilies,  which  are 
popular  in  the  truest  and  best  sense  of  the  word.  What  boundless  stores, 
for  instance,  of  happy  illustration,  which  might  with  the  greatest  ease 
be  thrown  into  the  forms  of  parables,  are  laid  up  in  the  writings  of  St. 
Augustine.  One  is  only  perplexed  amid  the  endless  variety  what  in- 
stances to  select:  but  we  may  take  this  one  as  an  example.  He  is 
speaking  of  the  Son  of  God  and  the  sinner  in  the  same  world,  and  ap- 
pearing under  the  same  conditions  of  humanity ;  "  But,"  he  proceeds, 
"how  great  a  difference  there  is  between  the  prisoner  in  his  dungeon 
and  the  visitor  that  has  come  to  see  him.  They  are  both  within  the 
walls  of  the  dungeon  :  one  who  did  not  know  might  suppose  them  under 
equal  restraint,  but  one  is  the  compassionate  visitor  who  can  use  his  free- 
dom when  he  will,  the  other  is  fast  bound  there  for  his  offences.  So 
great  is  the  difference  between  Christ,  the  compassionate  visitor  of  man, 
and  man  himself,  the  criminal  in  bondage  for  his  offences. "f  Or  re- 
buking them  that  dare  in  their  ignorance  to  find  fault  with  the  arrange- 
ments of  providence : — "If you  entered  the  workshop  of  a  blacksmith, 
you  would  not  dare  to  find  fault  with  his  bellows,  anvils,  hammers.  If 
you  had — not  the  skill  of  a  workman,  but  the  consideration  of  a  man, 
what  would  you  say  ?  '  It  is  not  without  cause  the  bellows  are  placed 
here  ;  the  artificer  knew,  though  I  do  not  know,  the  reason.'  You  would 
not  venture  to  find  fault  with  the  blacksmith  in  his  shop,  and  do  you  dare 
to  find  fault  with  God  in  the  world  ?":}:— Chrysostom,  too,  is  very  rich 
in  such  similitudes,  which  need  nothing  to  be  parables,  except  that 
they  should  be  presented  for  such  ;  as  for  instance,  when  speaking  of 
the  exaltation  of  outward  nature,  the  redemption  of  the  creature,  which 
shall  accompany  the  manifestation  of  the*  sons  of  God,  he  says,  "  To 
what  is  the  creation  like  ?  It  is  like  a  nurse  that  has  brought  up  a  royal 
child,  and  when  he  ascends  his  paternal  throne,  she  too  rejoices  with  him, 
and  is  partaker  of  the  benefit."§      But  the  field  here  opening  before  us 

*  In  the  Benedictine  edition,  v.  1,  p.  1251,  seq. 
+  In  Ep.  1  Joh.,  Tract.  2. 

t  Enarr.  in  Ps.  c.xlviii.     He  has  something  perhaps  more  nearly  approaching  in 
ts  form  to  a  parable  than  either  of  these,  Enarr.  in  Ps.  ciii.  26. 
§  Horn,  in  Eom.  viii.  19. 


THOSE  IN  THE  SCRIPTURES.  53 

is  too  wide  to  enter  on.'*'  It  is  of  parables  strictly  so  called,  and  not  all 
of  these,f  but  of  such  ofily  as  are  found  in  the  New  Testament,  that 
it  is  my  wish  to  speak  :  and  these  I  would  now  proceed  severally  and 
in  order  to  consider. 

*  I  will  not,  however,  deny  myself  the  pleasure  of  transcribing  the  following  para- 
ble from  H.  de  Sto.  Victore  (De  Sacram.,  1.  2,  pars  14,  c.  8) :  Pater  quidam  contuma- 
cem  filium  quasi  cum  magno  furore  expulit,  ut  ita  afflictus  humiliari  disceret.  Sed  illo 
in  contumaciasua  persistente.quadam  secreta  dispensatione  consilii  a  patre  mater  mitti- 
tur,  ut  non  quasi  a  patre  missa,sed  quasi  materna  per  se  pietate  ducta  veniens  muliebri 
lenitate  obstinatum  demulceat,  contumacem  ad  humilitalem  flectat,  vehementer  patrem 
iratum  nuntiet,  se  tamen  inlerventuram  spondeat,  consilium  salutis  suggerat,  ....  non 
nisi  magnis  precibus  patrem  placari  posse  dicat  ;  causam  tamen  rei  se  suscepturam  as- 
serat,  et  ad  bonam  finem  rem  omnem  se  perducturam  promittat.  The  mother  here  he 
presently  explains  as  divine  Grace. — Readers  that  have  at  hand  Poiret's  remarkable 
work,  CEconomi  Divina,  may  find  a  parable,  (v.  2,  p.  554.)  1.  5,  c.  9,  §26,  which  is  too 
long  to  quote,  but  is  worthy  a  reference  ;  and  another  in  Salmeron's  i'erm.  in  Parah. 
Evang  ,  p.  300. 

t  One  Persian,  however,  I  will  quote  for  its  deep  significance.  I  take  it  from  Des- 
LONGCHAMPs'  Fables  Indiennes,  p.  G4.  The  Persian  moralist  is  speaking  of  the  man- 
ner in  which  frivolous  and  sensual  pleasures  cause  men  to  forget  all  the  deeper  interests 
of  their  spiritual  being:  On  ne  peut  mieux  assimiler  le  genre  humain  qu'a  un  homme 
qui,  fuyant  un  elephant  furieux,  est  descendu  dans  un  puits,  il  s'est  accroche  a  deux  ra- 
meaux  qui  en  couvrent  I'orifice  ;  et  ses  pieds  se  sont  poses  sur  quelque  chose  qui  forme 
une  saillie  dans  I'interieur  du  merae  puits:  ce  sont  quatre  serpens  qui  sortent  leurs  tetes 
hors  de  leur  repaires  ;  il  apperqoit  au  fond  du  puits,  un  dragon  qui  gueule  ouverte  n'at- 
tend  que  I'instant  de  sa  chAte  pour  le  devorer.  Ses  regards  se  portent  vers  les  deux 
rameaux  auquels  il  est  suspendu,  et  11  voit  a  leur  naissance  deux  rats,  I'un  noir,  I'autre 
blanc,  qui  ne  cessent  de  les  ronger.  Un  autre  objet  cependant  se  presente  a  sa  vue : 
c'est  une  ruche  remplie  de  mouches  a  miel,  il  se  met  a  manger  de  leur  miel,  et  le  plaisir 
qu'ily  trouve  lui  fait  oublier  les  serpens  sur  lesquels  reposent  ses  pieds,  les  rats  qui  ron- 
gent  les  rameaux  auxquels  il  est  suspendu,  et  le  danger  dont  il  est  menace  a  chaque  in- 
stant, de  devenir  la  proie  du  dragon  qui  guette  !e  moment  de  sa  chiite  pour  le  devorer. 
Son  etourderie  et  son  illusion  ne  cessent  qu'avec  son  existence.  Ce  puits  c'est  le  monde 
renipli  de  dangers  et  de  miseres  ;  les  quatre  serpens  ce  sont  les  quatres  humeurs  dont  le 
melange  forme  notre  corps,  mais  qui,  lorsque  leur  equilibre  est  rompu,  deviennent  au- 
tant  de  poisons  mortels  ;  ces  deux  rats,  I'un  noir,  I'autre  blanc,  ce  sont  le  jour  et  la  nuit, 
dont  la  succession  consume  la  duree  de  notre  vie  ;  le  dragon  c'est  le  terme  inevitable 
qui  nous  attend  tous  ;  le  miel,  enfin,ce  sont  les  plaisirs  des  sens  dont  la  fausse  douceur, 
nous  seduit  et  nous  detourne  du  chemin  ou  nous  devons  marcher.  This  is  again,  with 
some  slight  alterations,  to  be  found  among  the  specimens  of  the  great  mystical  poet  of 
Persia,  Dschelaleddin,  given  by  Von  Hammer  {Gesch.  d.  scliOn.  Redek.  Fers.,  p.  183,) 
in  Barlaam  and  Josaphat,  c.  12,  and  elsewhere.  In  S.  de  Sacy's  Chrest.  Arabe  (v.  2. 
p.  364)  there  is  a  parable  by  an  Arabian  author  which  bears  some  resemblance,  par- 
ticularly at  its  opening,  to  that  of  the  talents  ;  and  in  T^luck's  BUithensammlung 
aus  d.  Morgenl.  Myst.,  there  are  several  parables  from  the  mystical  poets  of  Persia  ; 
for  instance,  a  beautiful  one,  p.  105. 


PARABLE  I. 


THE   SOWER. 

Matt.  xiii.  3-8,  and  18-23  ;  Mark  iv.  4-8,  and  14-21 ; 
Luke  viii.  5-8,  and  11-15. 

It  is  evidently  the  purpose  of  St.  Matthew  to  present  to  his  readers 
the  parables  recorded  in  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  his  Gospel  as  the  first 
which  the  Lord  spoke  ;  with  this  of  the  Sower  he  commenced  a  manner 
of  teaching  which  he  had  not  hitherto  used.  This  is  sufficiently  indi- 
cated by  the  question  which  the  disciples  asked,  "  Why  speakest  thou 
unto  them  in  parables  ?"  (ver.  10,)  and  the  answer  which  our  Lord  gave, 
(ver.  11-17,)  in  which  he  justifies  his  use  of  this  method  of  teaching, 
and  declares  the  purpose  which  he  had  in  adopting  it ;  and  no  less  so, 
when  he  seems  to  consider  this  parable  as  the  fundamental  one,  on  the 
fright  understanding  of  which,  would  depend  their  comprehension  of  all 
'  which  were  to  follow — "  Know  ye  not  this  parable  ?  and  how  then  will 
ye  know  all  parables  ?"  (Mark  iv,  13.)  And  as  this  was  the  first  occa- 
sion on  which  he  brought  forth  these  things  new  out  of  his  treasure,  (see 
ver.  22,)  so  was  it  the  occasion  on  which  he  brought  them  forth  with  the 
largest  hand.  We  have  not  anywhere  else  in  the  Gospels  so  rich  a 
"roup  of  parables  assembled  together,  so  many  and  so  costly  pearls  strung 
upon  a  single  thread. '  The  only  passage  that  will  bear  comparison  is 
chapters  xv.  and  xvi.  of  St.  Luke,  where  there  are  recorded  five  parables 
that  were  all  apparently  spoken  on  the  same  occasion.  The  seven  that 
are  here  recorded  divide  themselves  into  two  smaller  groups, — the  first 
four  being  spoken  to  the  multitude  while  he  taught  them  out  of  the  ship, 
— the  three  last,  as  it  would  seem,  on  the  same  day,  in  the  narrower 
circle  of  his  disciples  at  his  own  home. 

Before  proceeding  to  consider  the  parables  themselves,  let  us  seek  to 
realize  to  ourselves,  aud  to  picture  vividly  to  our  minds  the  aspect  which 
the  outward  nature  wotc,  and  what  the  scenery  was  with  which  our 
blessed  Lord  and  the  listening  multitudes  were  surrounded.  St.  Mat- 
thew tells  us  that  "  Jesus  went  out  from  the  house,"  probably  at  Caper- 


THE  SOWER.  55 

naum,  which  was  the  city  where  he  commonly  dwelt  after  his  open  min- 
istry began,  (Matt,  iv.  13,)  "  his  own  city,"  (Matt.  ix.  1,)  and  which  was 
close  by  the  sea-shore,*  and  going  out  he  "  sat  down  by  the  sea-side," 
that  is,  by  the  lake  of  Genesareth,  the  scene  of  so  many  incidents  in  his 
ministry.  This  lake  (now  Bahr  Tabaria,)  goes  by  many  names  in  the 
Gospels.  It  is  often  called  simply  "  the  sea,"  (Mark  iv.  1,)  or  "the 
Sea  of  Galilee,"  (Matt.  xv.  29,  John  vi.  1,)  or  "the  sea  of  Tibe- 
rias,"  (John  xxi.  1,)  though  indeed  it  was  an  inland  lake  of  no  very 
great  extent,  being  but  about  sixteen  miles  in  length,  and  no  more 
than  six  in  breadth.  But  it  might  well  claim  regard  for  its  beauty,  if 
not  for  its  extent :  the  Jewish  writers  would  have  it  that  it  was  belov- 
ed of  God  above  all  the  waters  of  Canaan,  and  indeed  almost  all  ancient 
authors  that  have  mentioned  it,  as  well  as  modei'n  travellers,  speak  in 
glowing  terms  of  the  beauty  and  rich  fertility  of  its  banks.  Hence  some- 
times its  name  Genesareth  has  been  derived,  which  some  interpret  "  the 
garden  of  riches, "f  though  the  derivation,  I  believe,  is  insecure.  And 
even  now,  when  the  land  is  crushed  under  the  rod  of  Turkish  misrule, 
many  traces  of  its  former  beauty  remain,  many  evidences  of  the  fertility 
which  its  shores  will  again  assume  in  the  day  which  assuredly  cannot  be 
very  far  off,  when  that  rod  shall  be  lightened  from  them.  It  is  true  that 
the  olive-gardens  and  vineyards,  which  once  crowned  the  high  and  roman- 
tic hills  with  which  it  is  bounded  on  the  east  and  the  west,  have  disap- 
peared ;  but  the  citron,  the  orange,  and  the  date-tree,-  are  still  found  in 
rich  abundance  ;  and  in  the  higher  regions,  the  products  of  a  more  tem- 
perate zone  meet  together  with  these  ; — while  lower  down,  its  banks  are 
still  covered  with  aromatic  shrubs,  and  its  waters  are  still,  as  of  old, 
sweet  and  wholesome  to  drink,  and  always  cool,  clear,  and  transparent 
to  the  very  bottom,  and  as  gently  breaking  on  the  fine  white  sand  with 
which  its  shores  are  strewn  as  they  did  of  old,  when  the  feet  of  the  Son 
of  God  trod  those  sands,  or  walked  upon  those  waters.*     On  the  edge  of 

*  T))i/ 7rapa0aXa(7ai'ai/,  probably  SO  called  to  distinguish  it  from  another  Capernaum  on 
the  brook  Kishon. 

t  Jerome  {De  Nornin.  Heh.)  makes  Gennesar  =  hortus  principium. 

X  Josephus  {Bell.  Jud.,  3.  10,  1)  rises  into  high  poetical  animation  while  he  is  de- 
scribing its  attractions  ;  and  in  Roiir's  Palestinn,  (termed  by  Goethe,  a  glorious  book,) 
p.  67,  there  is  a  singularly  beautiful  description  of  this  lake  and  the  neighbouring  coun- 
try. See  also  Lightfoot's  Chorograjih.  Century,  c.  70,  79,  and  Meuschen,  Nov. 
Test,  ex  Talm.  illust.,  p.  151.  Yet  Robinson  {Bibl.  Researches,  v.  3,  p.  253)  gives  a 
far  less  enthusiastic  account.  He  speaks  indeed  of  the  lake  as  a  "  beautiful  sheet  of 
limpid  water  in  a  deeply  depressed  basin  ;"  but  the  form  of  the  hills,  "  regular  and 
almost  unbroken  heights,"  (p.  312,)  was  to  his  eye  "  rounded  and  tame  :"  and  as  it  was 
the  middle  summer  when  his  visit  was  made,  the  verdure  of  the  spring  had  already 
disappeared,  and  he  complains  of  nakedness  in  the  general  aspect  of  the  scenery. 


56  THE  SOWER. 

this  beautiful  lake  the  multitude  were  assembled,  in  such  numbers,  that 
probably,  as  on  another  occasion,  (Luke  v.  1,)  they  pressed  upon  the 
Lord,  so  that  he  found  it  convenient  to  enter  into  a  ship;  and  putting  off 
a  little  from  the  shore,  he  taught  them  from  it,  speaking  "  many  things 
unto  them  in  parables." 

First  in  order  is  the  parable  of  the  Sower.  It  rests,  like  so  many 
others,  on  one  of  the  common  familiar  doings  of  daily  life.  The  Lord 
lifted  up,  it  may  be,  his  eyes,  and  saw  at  no  great  distance  an  husband- 
man scattering  his  seed  in  the  furrows.  As  it  belongs  to  the  essentially 
popular  nature  of  the  Gospels,  that  parables  should  be  found  in  them 
rather  than  in  the  Epistles,  where  indeed  they  never  appear,  so  it  belongs 
to  the  popular  character  of  the  parable,  that  it  should  thus  rest  upon  the 
familiar  doings  of  common  life,  the  matters  which  occupy 

"  The  talk 
Man  holds  with  week-day  man  in  the  hourly  walk 
Of  the  world's  business  ;" 

while  at  the  same  time  the  Lord,  using  these  to  set  forth  eternal  and  spir- 
itual truths,  ennobles  ihem,  showing,  as  he  does,  how  they  continually 
reveal  and  set  forth  the  deepest  mysteries  of  his  kingdom.  "  A  sower 
went  forth  to  sow,'' — what  a  dignity  and  significance  have  these  few 
words,  used  in  the  sense  in  which  the  Lord  here  uses  them,  given  in  all 
after-times  to  the  toils  of  the  husbandman  in  the  furrow. 

The  comparison  of  the  relations  of  the  teacher  and  the  taught  to  those 
between  the  sower  and  the  soil,  and  of  the  truth  communicated  to  the  seed 
sown,  is  one  so  deeply  grounded  in  the  truest  analogies  between  the  worlds 
of  nature  and  of  spirit,  that  we  must  not  wonder  to  find  it  of  frequent  re- 
currence, not  merely  in  Scripture  (I  Pet.  i.  23  ;  1  John  iii.  9);  but  in 
the  works  of  all  the  wiser  heathens,*  of  all  who  have  realized  in  any  mea- 
sure what  teaching  means,  and  what  sort  of  influence  the  spirit  of  one  man 
ought  to  seek  to  exercise  on  the  spirits  of  his  fellows,  communicating  to 
them  living  and  expanding  truths.  While  all  teaching  that  is  worthy 
the  name  is  such,  while  all  words,  even  of  men,  that  are  really  words  are 
as  seeds,  with  a  power  to  take  root  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  those  that 

*  Grotius  has  here  a  particularly  rich  collection  of  parallel  passages  from  Greek 
and  Latin  writers  ;  he  or  others  have  adduced  such  from  Aristotle,  Cicero  (Tusc.  ii. 
5),  Plutarch,  Quintilian,  Philo,  and  many  more  ;  but  it  would  not  be  worth  while 
merely  to  repeat  their  quotations.  I  do  not  observe  that  any  have  this  one  from  Sene- 
ca {Ep.  73) :  Deus  ad  homines  venit,  ini6  (quod  propius  est)  in  homines  venit.  Semi- 
na  in  corporibus  humanis  disperse  sunt,  quae  si  bonus  cultor  excipit,  similia  origini  pro- 
deunt,  et  paria  his  ex  quibus  orta  sunt  surgunt :  si  malus,  non  aliter  qudm  humus  ster- 
i'is  ac  palustris  necat,  ac  deinde  creat  purgamcnta  pro  frugibus. 


THE  SOWER. 


57 


hear  them,  contain  germs  In  them  that  only  by  degrees  develop  them- 
selves ;*  in  a  much  higher  sense  must  this  be  true  of  the  words,  or  rather 
of  the  Word  of  God,  which  he  spake  who  was  himself  the  Seminal  Word 
which  he  communicated. f  Best  right  of  all  to  the  title  of  seed  has  that 
Word,  which  exercises  not  merely  a  partial  working  on  the  hearts  in 
which  it  is  received,  but  wholly  transforms  and  renews  them, — that 
Word  by  which  men  are  born  anew  into  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  of 
which  the  effects  endure  for  ever.  I  cannot  doubt  that  the  Lord  intend- 
ed to  set  himself  forth  as  the  chief  sower  of  the  seed,  (not,  of  course,  to 
the  exclusion  of  the  apostles  and  their  successors,)  that  here,  as  well  as 
in  the  next  parable,  he  that  soweth  the  good  seed  is  the  Son  of  man  ; 
and  this,  even  though  he  nowhere  in  the  three  interpretations  of  the 
present  one  announces  himself  as  such.^  Indeed,  it  is  difficult  to  see 
how  we  can  stop  short  of  him,  when  we  are  seeking  to  give  the  full 
meaning  to  the  words,  "  A  sower  ivent  forth  to  soto."^  His  entrance 
into  the  world  was  a  going  forth  to  sow  ;  the  word  of  the  kingdom, 
which  word  he  first  proclaimed,  was  his  seed  ;  the  hearts  of  men  his 
soil  ; — others  only  were  able  to  sow  because  he  had  sown  first  ;  they 
did  but  carry  on  the  work  which  he  had  auspicated  and  begun. 

**  And  when  he  sotoed,  some  seeds  fell  hy  the  7oay  side,  [and  it  teas 
trodden  down  (Luke  viii.  5)],  and  the  fowls  came  and  devoured  them  up." 
Some,  that  is,  fell  on  the  hard  footpath,  or  road,  where  the  glebe  was 
not  broken,  and  so  it  could  not  sink  down  in  the  earth,  but  lay  exposed 
on  the  surface  to  the  feet  of  passers  by,  till  at  length  it  became  an  easy 
prey  to  the  birds,  such  as  in  the  East  are  described  as  following  in  large 
flocks  the  husbandman,  to  gather  up,  if  they  can,  the  seed-corn  which 
he  has  scattered.  These  words  are  explained  by  Christ  himself;  for  of 
this  parable  we  have  an  authentic  interpretation,  one  that  has  come  from 
his  own  lips  ;  and  which  is  important,  as  has  been  observed,  not  merely 

*  Thus  Shakspeare,  of  a  man  of  thoughtful  wisdom  ; 
"  His  piausive  words 
He  scattered  not  in  ears,  but  grafted  them 
To  grow  there  and  to  bear." 
t  Salmeron  very  beautifully   (Senn.  in  Par.  Evang.,  p.   30)  ;    Quemadrnodiim 
Christus  Medicus  est  et  medicina,  Sacerdos  et  hostia,  Redemptor  et  redeniptio,  Legis- 
lator et  lex,  Janitor  et  ostium,  ita  Sator  et  semen.     Nee  enim  est  aliud  Evangelium 
ipsum,  quam  Christus incarnatus,  natus,  praedicans,  moriens,  resurgens,  mittens  Spiritum 
Sanctum,  congregans  Ecclesiam,  illarnque  sanclificans  et  gubernans. 

t  See,  however,  the  arguments  adduced  to  the  contrary  by  Mr.  Greswell  (Exp.  of 
the  Par.,  v.  5,  part.  2,  p.  238). 

§  Salmeron  {Serm.  in  Parab.,  p.  29)  :  Dicitur  exire  per  operationem  Incarnationis, 
qua  indutus  processit  tanquam  agricola  aptam  pluviae,  soli  et  frigori  vesteni  assumens, 
ciJm  tamen  Rex  esset. 

5 


58  THE  SOWER. 

in  its  bearings  on  the  parable  itself,  as  enabling  us  to  feel  that  we  are 
treading  on  sure  ground,  but  also  as  giving  us  a  key  to  the  explanation 
of  other  parables,  instructing  us  how  far  we  may  safely  go  in  the  appli- 
cation of  their  minor  circumstances  :  these  words  are  thus  explained: — 
"  When  any  one.  heareth  the  word  of  the  kingdom  and  understandeih  it 
not,  then  cometh  the  xoicked  one,  and  catcheth  atvay  that  which  was  soion 
in  his  heart."  St.  Luke  brings  out  Satan  yet  more  distinctly  as  the 
adversary  and  hinderer  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  (of  which  there  will  be 
fuller  opportunity  of  speaking  in  the  following  parable,)  by  adding  the 
reason  why  he  snatches  the  word  away, — "  ?est  they  should  believe  and 
be  saved.''  The  words  which  St.  Matthew  alone  records,  "  and  un. 
derstandelh  it  not"  are  very  important  for  the  comprehending  of  what 
this  first  state  of  mind  and  heart  is,  in  which  the  word  of  God  is  unpro- 
ductive of  any,  even  transitory,  effect.  The  man  understands  it  not  ; 
he  does  not  recognize  himself  as  standing  in  any  relation  to  the  word 
which  he  hears,  or  to  the  kingdom  of  grace  which  that  word  proclaims. 
All  that  speaks  of  man's  connection  with  a  higher  invisible  world,  all  that 
speaks  of  sin,  of  redemption,  of  holiness,  is  unintelligible  to  him,  and 
wholly  without  significance.  But  how  has  he  come  to  this  state  ?  He 
has  brought  himself  to  it ;  he  has  exposed  his  heart  as  a  common  road 
to  every  evil  influence  of  the  world,  till  it  has  become  hard  as  a  pave- 
ment * — till  he  has  laid  waste  the  very  soil  in  which  the  word  of  God 
should  have  taken  root  ;  and  hejias  not  submitted  it  to  the  ploughshare 
of  the  law,  which  would  have  broken  it  ;  which,  if  he  had  suffered  it  to 
do  the  work  which  God  appointed  it  to  do,  would  have  gone  before,  pre- 
paring that  soil  to  receive  the  seed  of  the  Gospel.  But  what  renders  his 
case  the  more  hopeless,  and  takes  away  even  a  possibility  of  the  word 
germinating  there  is,  that  besides  the  evil  condition  of  the  soil,  there  is 
also  One  watching  to  take  advantage  of  that  evil  condition,  to  use  every 
weapon  that  man  puts  into  his  hands,  against  man's  salvation ;  and  he, 
lest  by  possibility  such  an  hearer  might  believe  and  be  saved,  sends  his 
ministers  in  the  shape  of  evil  thoughts,  worldly  desires,  carnal  lusts, 
and  by  their  help,  as  St,  Mark  records  it,  "  immediately  takeih  away  the 
word  that  was  sown  in  their  hearts."  And  the  Lord  concludes,  "  This 
is  he  that  received  seed  by  the  way  side." 

Other  of  the  seed,  which  the  sower  scattered,  appeared  to  have  at 
first,  but  in  the  end  had  not  truly  any  better  success.  For  we  read, 
"  Some  fell  upon  stony  places,  where  they  had  not  much  earth  ;  and  forth- 

*  H.  de  Sto  Victore  (Annott.  in  Matth.) :  Via  est  cor  frequenti  malaium  cogita- 
tionem  transitu  attritum  et  arefactum.  Corn,  a  Lap.  :  Via  est  trita  secularis  et  liceu- 
tioriB  vitae  consuetude. 


THE  SOWER.  59 

with  they  sprung  up,  because  they  had  no  deepness  of  earth,  and  when  the 
sun  was  up,*  they  were  scorched,  and  because  they  had  no  root  they 
withered  away."  The  "  stony  places  "  here  are  to  be  explained  by  the 
"rock  "  in  St.  Luke,  and  it  is  important,  for  the  right  understanding  of 
the  parable,  that  the  words  in  St.  Matthew,  or  rather  in  our  translation 
of  them,  (for  "  rocky  places," — as  indeed  the  Rhemish  version  has  it, 
— would  have  avoided  the  possibility  of  any  mistake,)  do  not  lead  us, 
astray.  A  soil  mingled  with  stones  is  not  meant ;  for  these,  however 
numerous  or  large,  would  not  certainly  hinder  the  roots  from  striking 
deeply  downward,  as  those  roots,  with  the  instinct  which  they  possess, 
would  feel  and  find  their  way,  penetrating  between  the  interstices  of  the 
stones,  and  would  so  reach  the  moisture  below.  But  what  is  meant  is 
ground,  where  a  thin  superficial  coating  of  mould  covered  the  surface  of 
a  rock,  which  stretched  below  it  and  presented  an  impassable  barrier, 
rendering  it  wholly  impossible  that  the  roots  should  penetrate  beyond  a 
certain  depth,  or  draw  up  any  supplies  of  nourishment  from  beneath. f 
While  the  seed  had  not  fallen  into  deep  earth,  therefore  the  plant  the 
sooner  appeared  above  the  surface  ;  and  while  the  rock  below  hindered 
it  from  striking  deeply  downward,  it  put  forth  its  energies  the  more  lux- 
uriantly in  the  stalk.  It  sprung  up  without  delay,  but  was  not  rooted 
in  that  deep  moist  soil  which  would  have  enabled  it  to  resist  the  scorch- 
ing heat  of  the  sun,  and  being  smitten  by  that,  withered  and  died. 

Concerning  the  signification  of  this  part  of  the  parable  we  learn, 
"  They  on  the  rock  are  they,  which,  when  they  hear,  receive  the  jvord 
with  joy  ;  and  these  have  no  root,  which  for  a  while  believe,  and  in  time 
of  temptation  fall  away."  Though  the  issue  is  the  same  in  this  case  as 
in  the  last,  the  promise  is  very  different ;  so  far  from  the  heart  of  this 
manner  of  hearer  appearing  irreceptive  of  the  truth,  the  good  news  of 
the  kingdom  is  received  at  once,  and  with  gladness.:}:  But  alas  !  the  joy 
thus  suddenly  conceived  is  not,  as  the  sequel  too  surely  proves,  a  joy 
springing  up  from  the  contemplation  of  the  greatness  of  the  benefit,  even 

*  'AvaTtWtiv  once  occurs  transitively  in  the  New  Testament, Matt.  v.  45  ;  so  Gen. 
iii.  18,  Isai.  xlv.  8  (lxx).  It  is  especially  used,  as  in  this  passage,  of  the  rising  of  the 
sun  or  stars.  Num.  xxiv.  17  ;  Isai.  Ix.  1  ;  Mai.  iv.  2  ;  but  also  of  the  springing  up  of 
plants  from  the  earth.  Gen.  xix.  25  ;  Isai.  xltv.  4  ;  Ezek.  xvii.  6  ;  Ps.  xci.  7  ;  and  so, 
i^avirtiKt,  in  this  present  parable.  In  either  sense  the  title  dvaroM  belongs  to  Christ, 
and  has  been  applied  to  him  in  both  ;  as  he  is  The  Branch  ('AvaroXi;,  Zech.  vi.  12, 
LXX.),  and  as  he  is  the  Day-spring  (Luke  i.  78). 

t  Bengel :  Non  innuunter  lapides  sparsim  in  agro  jacentes,  sed  petra  sive  saxum 
continuum,  sub  terras  superficie  tenui. 

X  Cocceius :  Statim  Isetari  est  malum  signum,  quia  non  potest  non  verbum  Dei, 
si  rectc  percipiatur,  in  homine  operari  displicentiam  sui,  aywviav,  angustias,  cor  con- 
tritum,  spiritum  fractum,  famem  ac  sitim,  denique  luctum,  ut  Servator  docuit.     Matt.  v. 


60  THE  SOWER. 

after  all  the  counterbalancing  costs  and  hazards  and  sacrifices  are  taken 
into  account,  but  a  joy  arising  from  an  overlooking  and  leaving  out  of 
calculation  those  costs  and  hazards — which  circumstance  fatally  differ- 
ences the  joy  of  this  class  of  hearers  from  that  of  the  finder  of  the  trea- 
sure, (Matt.  xiii.  44,)  who  for  the  joy  thereof,  went  and  sold  all  that  he 
had,  that  he  might  purchase  the  field  which  contained  the  treasure — that 
is,  was  willing  to  deny  himself  all  things,  and  to  suffer  all  things,  that 
he  might  win  Christ.  We  have  rather  here  a  state  of  mind  not  stub- 
bornly  repelling  the  truth,  but  wofuUy  lacking  in  all  deeper  earnestness, 
such  as  that  of  the  great  multitudes  that  went  with  Jesus,  not  consider- 
ing what  his  discipleship  involved, — those  multitudes  to  whom  he  turned 
and  told  at  large,  and  in  the  strongest  language,  what  the  conditions  of 
that  discipleship  were,  (Luke  xiv.  25-33,)  exhorting  them  beforehand 
that  they  should  count  the  cost.  This  is  exactly  what  the  hearer  here 
described  has  not  done  ;  whatever  was  fair  and  beautiful  in  Christianity 
as  it  first  presents  itself,  had  attracted  him — its  sweet  and  comfortable 
promises,*  the  moral  loveliness  of  its  doctrines ;  but  not  its  answer  to 
the  deepest  needs  of  the  human  heart;  as  neither  when  he  received  the 
word  with  gladness,  had  he  contemplated  the  having  to  endure  hardness 
in  his  warfare  with  sin  and  Satan  and  the  world. — "  So  hath  he  not  root 
in  himself,  but  durethfor  a  while,  for  when  tribulation  or  persecution  aris- 
eth  becaxise  of  the  word,  by  and  by  he  is  offended."  It  is  not  here,  as  in 
the  last  case,  that  Satan  can  merely  come  and  take  the  word  out  of  the 
heart  without  further  trouble  ;  that  word  has  found  some  place  there, 
and  it  needs  that  he  bring  some  hostile  influences  to  bear  against  it. 
What  he  brings  in  tho  present  case  are  outward  or  inward  trials,  these 
being  compared  to  the  burning  heat  of  the  sun.f  It  is  true  that  gene, 
rally  the  light  and  warmth  of  the  sun  are  used  to  set  forth  the  genial  and 
comfortable  workings  of  God's  grace,  as  eminently  Mai.  iv.  2;  but  not 
always,  for  see,  beside  the  passage  before  us,  Ps.  cxxi.  6 ;  Isai.  xlix. 
10 ;  Rev.  vii.  16.  As  that  heat,  had  the  plant  been  rooted  deeply 
enough,  would  have  furthered  its  growth,  and  hastened  its  ripening,  fit- 
ling  it  for  the  sickle  and  the  barn — so  these  tribulations  would  have  fur- 
thered the  growth  in  grace  of  the  true  Christian,  and  ripened  him  for 
heaven.  But  as  the  heat  scorches  the  blade  which  has  no  deepness  of 
earth,  and  has  sprung  up  on  a  shallow  ground,  so  the  troubles  and  afflic- 

*  Bede  :  Ilia  sunt  praecordia  quae  dulcedine  tantfim  auditi  sermonis  ac  promissis 
caelestibus  ad  horam  delectantur. 

t  It  was  with  the  rising  of  the  sun,  that  the  KaOaiov,  the  hot  desert  wind,  began 
commonly  to  blow,  the  deadly  efiects  of  which  on  all  vegetation  are  often  alluded  to. 
(Jon.  iv.  8:  Jam.  i.  11.)     Plants  thus  smitten  with   the  heat  are  called  torrefacta, 


THE  SOWER.  61 

tions  which  would  have  strengthened  a  true  faith,  cause  a  faith  which 
was  merely  temporary  to  fail.*  When  these  afflictions  for  the  word's 
sake  arrive  he  is  offended,  as  though  some  strange  thing  had  happened 
to  him  :f  for  then  are  the  times  of  sifting,:}:  and  of  winnowing  ;  and  then 
too  every  one  that  has  no  root,  or  as  St.  Matthew  describes  it,  no  root  in 
himself,  no  inward  root,§  falls  away. 

The  havinj;  that  inward  root  here  answers  to  the  having  a  foundation 
on  the  rock,  Matt.  vii.  25,  to  the  having  oil  in  the  vessels  elsewhere. 
(Matt.  XXV.  4.)  And  the  image  itself  is  not  an  unfrequent  one  in  Scrip- 
ture. (Ephes.  iii.  17 ;  Col.  ii.  7  ;  Jer.  xvii.  8  ;  Hos.  ix.  16.)  It  has 
a  peculiar  fitness  and  beauty, — for  as  the  roots  of  a  tree  are  out  of  sight, 
yet  from  them  it  derives  its  firmness  and  stability,  so  upon  the  hidden 
life  of  the  Christian,  that  life  which  is  out  of  the  sight  of  other  men,  his 
firmness  and  stability  depend  ;  and  as  it  is  through  the  hidden  roots  that 
the  nourishment  is  drawn  up  to  the  stem  and  branches,  and  the  leaf 
continues  green,  and  the  tree  does  not  cease  from  bearing  fruit,  even  so 
in  the  Christian's  hidden  life,  that  life  which  "  is  hid  in  Christ  with 
God."  lie  the  sources  of  his  strength  and  of  his  spiritual  prosperity. 
Such  a  root  in  himself  had  Peter,  who,  when  many  others  were  offended 
and  drew  back,  exclaimed,  "  To  whom  shall  we  go  ?  thou  hast  the 
words  of  eternal  life."  (John  vi.  68.)  This  faith  that  Christ  and  no 
other  had  the  words  of  eternal  life  and  blessedness,  was  what  constituted 
his  root,  causing  him  to  stand  firm  when  so  many  fell  away.  So  again 
when  the  Hebrew  Christians  took  joyfully  the  spoiling  of  their  goods, 
knowing  in  themselves  that  they  had  "  in  heaven  a  better  and  an  en- 
during substance,"  (Heb.  x.  34,)  this  knowledge,  this  faith  concerning 
their  unseen  inheritance,  was  the  root  which  enabled  them  joyfully  to 
take  that  loss,  and  not  to  draw  back  unto  perdition,  as  so  many  had 
done.     Compare  2  Cor.  iv.   17,  18,  where  again  the  faith  in  the  unseen 

*  Augustine  is  particularly  rich  in  striking  sayings  on  the  different  effects  which 
tribulations  will  have  on  those  that  are  rooted  and  grounded  in  the  faith,  and  those 
that  are  otherwise.  Thus  {Enarr.  in  Ps.  xxi.)  speaking  of  the  furnace  of  affliction  : 
Ibi  est  aurum,  ibi  est  palea,  ibi  ignis  in  angusto  operatur.  Ignis  ille  non  est  diversus, 
et  diversa  agit,  paleam  in  cinerem  vertit,  auro  sordes  tollit.  See  for  the  same  image 
Chrysostom,  Ad  Pop.  Antioch.,  Horn.  4,  1. 

t  See  Job  viii.  11,  12,  and  Umbreit's  Note. 

\  The  very  word  "  tribulation"  with  which  we  have  rendered  the  OX^ipn  of  the 
original,  rests  upon  this  image — tribulatio  from  tribulum,  the  threshing-roller,  and  thus 
used  to  signify  those  afflictive  processes  by  which  in  the  moral  discipline  of  men  God 
separates  their  good  from  their  evil,  their  wheat  from  their  chaff. 

§  It  is  with  allusion  to  this  passage  no  doubt  that  men  of  faith  are  called  in  the 
Greek  Fathers,  Paevfjpi^oi,  nohfpi^m.  Compare  with  this  division  of  the  parable,  the 
Shepherd  of  Hernias,  1.  3,  sim.  9,  c.  21. 


62  THE  SOWER. 

eternal  things  is  the  root,  which,  as  St.  Paul  declares,  enables  him  to 
count  the  present  affliction  light,  and  to  endure  to  the  end.  Demas,  on  the 
other  hand,  lacked  that  root.  It  might  at  first  sight  seem  as  if  he  would 
be  more  correctly  ranged  under  the  third  class  of  hearers ;  since  he  for- 
sook Paul,  "  having  loved  this  present  world."  But  when  we  examine 
more  closely  what  was  Paul's  condition  at  Rome  at  the  moment  when 
Demas  left  him,  we  find  it  to  have  been  one  of  great  outward  trial  and 
danger ;  so  that  it  would  seem  more  probable  that  the  immediate  cause- 
of  his  so  going  back,  vvas  the  tribulation  which  came  for  the  word's 
sake.* 

But  thirdly — of  the  seed  which  the  sower  cast,  '■^  some  fell  mnong 
thorns,  and  the  thorns  sprung  up  and  choked  it,^'  or  as  Wiclif  has, 
"  strangled  it,"f  so  that,  as  St.  Mark  adds,  "  it  yielded  no  fruit."  It  is 
not  that  this  seed  fell  so  much  among  thorns  that  were  full  grown,  as  in 
ground  where  the  roots  of  these  had  not  been  carefully  extirpated,  in 
ground  which  had  not  been  thoroughly  purged  and  cleansed  ;  otherwise 
it  could  not  be  said  in  the  words  of  Luke,  "  that  the  thorns  sprang  up 
with  it."  They  grew  together  ;  only  the  thorns  overtopped  the  good 
seed,  shut  them  out  from  the  air  and  light,  drew  away  from  their  roots  the 
moisture  and  richness  of  earth,  which  should  have  nourished  them, 
and  thus  they  pined  and  dwindled  in  the  shade.  They  grew  dwarfed 
and  stunted,  for  the  best  of  the  soil  did  not  feed  them — forming  indeed  a 
blade,  but  unable  to  form  a  full  corn  in  the  ear,  bringing  no  fruit  to  per- 
fection. It  is  not  here,  as  in  the  first  case,  that  there  was  no  soil,  or 
none  deserving  the  name — nor  yet  as  in  the  second  case,  that  there  was 
a  poor  or  shallow  soil.  Here  there  was  no  lack  of  soil,  it  might  be  good 
soil ;  but  what  was  deficient  was  a  careful  husbandry,  a  diligent  eradi- 
cation of  the  mischievous  growths,  which,  unless  extirpated,  would  op- 
press and  strangle  whatever  sprung  up  side  by  side  with  them. 

Of  this  part  of  the  parable  we  have  the  following  explanation — "  He 
also  that  received  seed  among  the  thorns, '  is  he  that  heareth  the  word,  and 
the  cares  \  of  this  world  and  the  deceitfulness  of  riches  [and  the  lusts  of 
other  things  ^  entering  in  (Mark  iv.  \Q)'\,  choke  the  word,  and  he  hecomcth 

*  See  Bernard  {Be  Offic.  Epist.,  c.  4,  §  14,  15),  for  an  interesting  discussion, 
whether  the  faith  of  those  comprehended  under  this  second  head  was,  so  long  as  it 
lasted,  real  or  not, — in  fact,  on  the  question  whether  it  be  possible  to  fall  from  grace 
given. 

t  Columella:  Angentem  herbam.  The  image  of  an  evil  growth  strangling  a 
nobler,  is  permanently  embodied  in  our  language  in  the  name  cockle,  given  to  a 
weed  well-known  in  our  fields — derived  from  the  Anglo-Saxon,  ceocan,  to  choke. 

t  Catullus :  Spinosas  Erycina  sercns  in  peutore  curas. 

§  'H  ffcp!  rii  XoiTra  IviOvjiia.  Winer  (Gratiwi.,  p.  177)  would  ratlicr  translate.  The 
lusts  about  other  things  (cupiditates  quae  circa  reliqua  versantur). 


THE  SOWER. ■•  63 

unfruitful,'^  or,  as  St.  Luke  gives  it,  ^^  they  hring  no  fruit  to  perfection.''* 
It  is  not  here  as  in  the  first  case,  that  the  word  of  God  is  totally  ineffec- 
tual ;  nor  yet  as  in  the  second  case,  that  after  a  temporary  obedience  to 
the  truth,  there  is  an  evident  falling  away  from  it,  such  as  the  withering 
of  the  stalk  indicates  :  the  profession  of  a  spiritual  life  is  retained,  the 
name  to  live  still  remains — but  the  life  and  power  of  religion  is  by  de- 
grees eaten  out  and  has  departed.  And  to  what  disastrous  influences  are 
these  sad  effects  attributed  ?  To  two  things,  the  cares  of  this  world, 
and  its  pleasures  ;  these  are  the  thorns  and  briars  that  strangle  the  life 
of  the  soul.f  It  may  seem  strange  at  first  sight,  that  these  which  appear 
so  opposite  to  one  another,  should  yet  be  linked  together,  and  have  the 
same  evil  consequences  attributed  to  them  :  but  the  Lord  does  in  fact 
here  present  to  us  this  earthly  life  on  its  two  sides,  under  its  two  aspects. 
There  is  first,  its  crushing  oppressive  side,  the  poor  man's  toil  how  to  live 
at  all,  to  keep  hunger  and  nakedness  from  the  door,  the  struggle  for  a 
daily 'subsislence,  " //ie  cares  of  this  life,"X  which  if  not  met  in  faith, 
hinder  the  thriving  of  the  spiritual  word  in  the  heart.  But  life  has  its 
flattering  as  well  as  its  threatening  side,  its  pleasures  as  well  as  its  cares  ; 
and  as  those  who  have  heard  and  received  the  word  of  the  kingdom  with 
gladness,  are  still  exposed  to  be  crushed  by  the  cares  of  life,  so  on  the 
other  hand,  to  be  deceived  by  its  flatteries  and  its  allurements.  In 
neither  case  has  the  world  altogether  lost  its  power,  nor  is  the  old  man 
dead  :  for  awhile  he  may  seem  dead,  so  long  as  the  first  joy  on  account 
of  the  treasure  found  endures  ;  but  unless  mortified  in  earnest,  will 
presently  revive  in  all   his  strength  anew.     Unless  the  soil  of  the  heart 

*  Oi  T£'Ks<x(l,opovat.  The  word  occurs  only  here  in  the  New  Testament.  It  is  es- 
pecially used  of  a  woman  bringing  her  child  to  the  birth,  or  a  tree  its  fruit  to  matu- 
rity. 

t  See  the  Shepherd  of  Hernias,  1.  3,  sim.  9,  c.  20,  for  the  emblem  of  the  moun- 
tain covered  with  thorns  and  briers  ;  and  so  Jer.  iv.  3  :  "  Break,  up  your  fallow  ground, 
and  sow  not  among  thorns."  It  is  evident  that  in  the  great  symbolic  language  of  ihe 
outward  world,  these  have  a  peculiar  fitness  for  the  expression  of  influences  hostile  to 
the  truth.  They  are  themselves  the  consequences  and  evidences  of  sin,  of  a  curse 
which  has  passed  on  from  man  to  the  earth  which  he  inhabits,  (Gen.  iii.  17,)  till  that 
earth  had  none  other  but  a  thorn-crown  to  yield  to  its  Lord.  It  is  a  sign  of  the  deep 
fitness  of  this  image  that  others  have  been  led  to  select  it,  for  the  setting  forth  of  the 
same  truth.  Thus  the  Pythagorean  Lysis  (Baur's  Apollonius,^.  192,)  TrvKtvaX  xal  \a- 
oiai  \6)(^nat  TTcpi  raj  (ppevag  KOt  rav  Kap6iav  TTe(piicavTi  rtoj/  jifi  Kadapcjs  roij  fiaQi]^aaiv  opyiaavev- 
TOiv,  ttSv  to  aixtpov  koX  vpaov  koX  XoyiariKov  rai  ipv^Ss  ima-Kioi^ovaai,  xal  KoiXuovcrai  rtpoipavui  jn-v 
av^r\di\ft.cv  Koi  irpoKVil/ai  to  voriTiKov. 

I  Mcpifiva  from  fjiipis,  that  which  draws  the  heart  different  ways.  See  Hos.  x.  2  : 
"  Their  heart  is  divided,"  i.  e.  between  God  and  the  world;  such  a  heart  constitutes 
the  di'iipStxpvxoi.  (Jam.  i.  8.)  See  Passow,  a.  v./i£p<//i'a,  who  quotes  Terence  :  Gurae 
animum  diverse  trahunt. 


64  THE  SOWER. 

be  diligently  watched,  the  thorns  and  briers,  of  which  it  seemed  a  tho- 
rough clearance  had  been  made,  will  again  grow  up  apace,  and  choke 
the  good  seed.*  While  that  which  God  promises  is  felt  to  be  good,  but 
also  what  the  world  promises  is  felt  to  be  good  also,  and  a  good  of  the 
same  kind,  instead  of  a  good  merely  and  altogether  subordinate  to  the 
other,  there  will  be  an  attempt  made  to  combine  the  service  of  the  two, 
to  serve  God  and  mammon  ;  but  the  attempt  will  be  in  vain — they  who 
make  it  will  bring  no  fruit  to  perfection,  will  fail  to  bring  forth  those  per- 
fect fruits  of  the  Spirit,  which  it  was  the  purpose  of  the  word  of  God  to 
produce  in  them.  The  Saviour  warns  us  against  the  danger  which 
proves  fatal  to  those  in  this  third  condition  of  heart  and  mind,  when  he 
says,  "  Take  heed  to  yourselves,  lest  at  any  time  your  hearts  be  over- 
charged with  surfeiting  and  drunkenness,  and  cares  of  this  life,  and  so 
that  day  come  upon  you  unawares;"  (Luke  xxi.  34  ;)  and  St.  Paul 
when  he  writes,  "  They  that  will  be  rich,  fall  into  temptation  and  a 
snare,  and  into  many  foolish  and  hurtful  lusts,  which  drown  men  in 
destruction  and  perdition."     (1  Tim.  vi.  9  ;  see  Matt.  vi.  25 — 34.)"j" 

But  ii  is  not  all  the  seed  which  thus  sooner  or  later  perishes.  The 
spiritual  husbandman  is  to  sow  in  hope,  knowing  that  with  the  blessing 
of  the  Lord,  he  will  not  always  sow  in  vain,  that    a  part  will  prosper.:(: 

*  Thus  with  a  deep  heart-knowledge  Thauler  {Dom.  22  post  Trin.,  Serin.  2) : 
Nostis  ipsi,  quod  dum  agar  sive  hortus  a  loliis  ac  zizaniis  expurgatur,  ut  plurimum 
radices  qusedam  zizaniorum  in  terrse  visceribus  maneant,  ita  tamen  ut  minime  deprc- 
hendantur.  Interim  humus  diligentur  conseritur  atque  sarritur:  ubi  dum  bona  seniina 
oriri  deberent,  simul  zizania  ex  radicibus  terrae  fixis  succrescunt,  et  frumentum  alias- 
que  herbas  el  semina  bona  destruent  opprimentque.  Sic  ergo  et  in  presenti  loco 
radices  dico,  pravos  quosque  defectus  et  vitia  in  fundo  latentia,  et  necdum  mortificala  : 
quae  per  confessionem  et  pcenitentiam,  ut  ita  dicam,  sarrita  quidem  sunt,  et  per  bona 
exercitia  exarata  :  attamen  vitiosarum  radicum  malaj  inclinationes  seu  propensiones, 
puta  vel  superbiae  vel  luxuriae,  irae  vel  invidiae,  seu  odii  hisque  similium  in  ipso  fundo 
relictae  sunt,  quae  postea  exoriuntur,  et  ubi  divina,  beata,  virtuosa,  laudabilis  vita  ex 
homine  germinare.succrescere, oriri  deberet,hsec  pessima  noxiarum  radicum  germina  pro- 
deunt,  fructusque  iliius  ac  religiosam  devotamque  dispergunl,extinguunt,  obruunt  vitam. 
t  Ovid's  description  {Metamorph.,  1.  5,  v.  4G3-46G,)  of  the  tilings  which  hinder 
the  returns  of  an  harvest  exactly  include,  with  a  few  slight  additions,  those  which  our 
Lord  has  given  ;  though  the  order  is  a  little  different  : 

Et  modo  sol  nimius,  nimius  niodo  corripit  imber  ; 

Sideraque  ventique  nocent ;  avidieque  volucres 

Seniina  jacta  legunt;  lolium  tribulique  faligant 

Triticeas  messes,  et  inexpugnabile  gramen. 
t  Thus  the  author  of  a  sermon  Augustini  0pp.,  v.  6,  p.  597,  Bened.  ed. :  Non 
ergo  no9,  dilectissimi,  aut  timor  spinarum,  aut  saxa  petrarum,  aut  durissima  via  perter- 
reat :  dum  tamen  seminantes  verbuni  Dei  ad  terrani  bonani  tandem  aliquando  perve- 
nire  possimus.  Acclpe  vcrbum  Dei,  omnis  ager,  omuls  homo,  sive  sterilis,  sive  foe- 
dus.     Ego  spargam,  tu  vide  (luomodo  accipias  :  ego  erogem,  tu  vide  qunles  fructus  reddas. 


THE  SOWER.  65 

"  Other  fell  into  good  ground,  and  brought  forth  fruit,  some  an  hundred 
fold,  some  sixty  fold,  some  thirty  fold."  St.  Luke  says  simply,  "  and 
baTe  fruit  a  hundred  fold,"  leaving  out  the  two  lesser  proportions  of 
return  which  St.  Mark  gives  ;  who,  however,  reverses  the  order  of  the 
three,  beginning  from  the  smallest  return,  and  ascending  to  the  highest. 
The  return  of  a  hundred  for  one  is  not  unheard  of  in  the  East,  though 
always  mentioned  as  something  extraordinary  ;  thus  it  is  said  of  Isaac^ 
that  he  sowed,  "  and  received  in  the  same  year  a  hundred  fold,  and  the 
Lord  blessed  him  ;"  (Gen.  xxvi.  12;)  and  other  examples  of  the  same 
kind  are  not  wanting.* 

We  learn  that  "  he  that  receiveth  seed  into  the  good  ground,  is  he 
that  heareth  the  word  and  understandeth  it,  which  also  beareth  fruit,  and 
bringeth  forth  some  a  hundred  fold,  some  sixty,  and  some  thirty,"  or  with 
the  important  variation  of  St.  Luke,  "  that  on  the  good  ground  are  they, 
who  in  an  honest  and  good  heart  having  heard  the  word  keep  it,-\  and 
bring  forth  fruit  with  patience" — important,  because  in  it  comes  distinctly 
forward  a  difficulty,  which  equally  existed  in  the  parable  as  recorded 
by  the  other  Evangelists,  but  did  not  come  forward  with  an  equal  dis- 
tinctness, and  yet  on  the  right  solution  of  which  a  successful  interpre- 
tation must  altogether  depend.  What  is  this  "  honest  and  good  heart  V 
how  can  any  heart  be  called  good,  before  the  Word  and  Spirit  have  made 
it  so  ? — and  yet  here  the  seed  fnds  a  good  soil,  does  not  make  it.  The 
same  question  recurs,  when  the  Lord  says,  "  He  that  is  of  God,  heareth 
God's  words;"  (John  viii.  41  ;)  and  again,  "  Every  one  that  is  of  the 
truth  heareth  my  voice."  (John  xviii.  37.)  But  who  in  this  sinful  world 
can  be  called  "  of  the  truth,"  for  is  it  not  the  universal  doctrine  of  the 
Bible  that  men  become  "  of  the  truth"  through  hearing  Christ's  words, 
not  that  they  hear  his  words  because  they  are  of  the  truth — that  the  heart 
is  good,  through  receiving  the  word,  not  that  it  receives  the  word,  because 
it  is  good  %%  This  is  certainly  the  scriptural  doctrine,  but  at  the  same  time 

*  Herodotus  mentions  that  two  hundred  fold  was  a  common  return  in  the  plain  of 
Babylon,  and  sometimes  three  ;  and  Niebuhr,  (Beschreib.  v.  Arab.,  p.  153,)  mentions 
a  species  of  maize  (hat  returns  four  hundred  fold  :  Wetstein  (in  loc.)  has  collected 
many  examples  from  antiquity  of  returns  as  great  as,  or  far  greater  than,  that  men- 
tioned in  the  text. 

t  Kar£;^ot)(T(.  So  John  viii.  51,  rnp^iv  rdi/  \6yoi>,  to  hold  fast  the  word.  St.  Mark 
also  has  an  instructive  word  napaSi^"'^'^"')  'hey  receive  it  into  their  inward  life  and 
soul. 

X  Augustine  (In  Ev.  Joh.,  Tract.  12,)  puts  the  difficulty  and  solves  it  in  this 
manner  :  Quid  est  hoc  ?  quorum  enim  erant  bona  opera  ?  Nonne  venisti  ut  justi- 
fices  impios? — He  replies;  Initium  operum  bonorum  confessio  est  operum  malorum. 
Facis  veritatem,  et  venis  ad  lucem.  Quid  est,  facis  veritatem  ?  non  te  palpas,  non 
tibi  blandiris,  non  tibi  adularis,  non  dicis,  Justus  sum,  cum  sis  iniquus;  et  incipis 
facere  veritatem. 


66  THE  SOWER. 

those  passages  from  St.  John,  as  well  as  this  present  parable,  and  much 
more  also  in  the  Scripture,  bear  witness  to  the  fact  that  there  are  condi- 
tions of  heart  in  which  the  truth  finds  readier  entrance  than  in  othi^s. 
"  Being  of  the  truth," — "  doing  truth," — having  the  soil  of  "  an  honest 
and  good  heart," — all  signify  the  same  thing.  Inasmuch  as  they  are  ante- 
rior to  hearinfT  God's  words — coming  to  the  light — bringing  forth  fruit — 
they  cannot  signify  a  state  of  mind  and  heart  in  which  the  truth  is  positive 
and  realized,  but  they  indicate  one  in  which  there  is  a  receptivity  for  the 
truth.  No  heart  can  be  said  to  be  absolutely  a  good  soil,  as  none  is  good 
save  God  only.  And  yet  the  Scripture  speaks  often  of  good  men  ;  even 
so  comparatively  it  may  be  said  of  some  hearts,  that  they  are  a  soil  fitter 
for  receiving  the  seed  of  everlasting  life  than  others.  Thus  the"  son  of 
peace"  will  alone  receive  the  message  of  peace,  (Luke  x.  6,)  while  yet 
not  anything  except  the  reception  of  that  message  will  make  him  truly 
a  son  of  peace.  He  was  before  indeed  a  latent  son  of  peace,  but  it  is  the 
Gospel  which  first  makes  actual  that  which  was  hitherto  only  potential. 
So  that  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  may  be  likened  to  the  scattering  of 
sparks  :  where  they  find  tinder,  there  they  fasten,  and  kindle  into  a 
flame  ;  or  to  a  lodestone  thrust  in  among  the  world's  rubbish,  attract- 
ing to  itself  all  particles  of  true  metal,  which  yet  but  for  this  would 
never  and  could  never  have  extricated  themselves  from  the  surrounding 
heap. 

Not  otherwise  among  those  to  whom  the  word  of  Christ,  as  actually 
preached  by  himself,  came,  there  were  two  divisions  of  men,  and  the 
same  will  always  subsist  in  the  world.  There  were  first  the  false-heart- 
ed, who  called  evil  good  and  good  evil — who  loved  their  darkness  and 
hated  the  light  that  would  make  that  darkness  manifest,  and  refused  t° 
walk  in  that  light  of  the  Lord  even  when  it  shone  round  about  them, 
drawing  back  further  into  their  own  darkness — self-excusers  and  self- 
justifiers,  such  as  were  for  the  most  part  the  Scribes  and  the  Pharisees, 
with  whom  Christ  came  in  contact.  But  there  were  also  others,  sinners 
as  well,  often  as  regards  actual  transgression  of  positive  law  much  greater 
sinners  than  those  first,  but  who  yet  acknowledged  their  evil — had  no 
wish  to  alter  the  everlasting  relations  between  right  and  wrong — who, 
when  the  light  appeared,  did  not  refuse  to  be  drawn  to  it,  even  though 
they  knew  that  it  would  condemn  their  darkness — that  it  would  require 
an  entire  remodelling  of  their  lives  and  hearts  :  such  were  the  Matthews 
and  the  Zaccha^uses,  all  who  confessed  their  deeds  justifying  God.  Not 
that  I  would  pi-efer  to  instance  these  as  examples  of  the  good  and  honest 
heart,  except  in  so  far  as  it  is  needful  to  guard  against  a  Pelagian  abuse 
of  the  phrase,  and  to  show  how  the  Lord's  language  here  does  not  con- 
demn even  great  and  grievous  sinners  to  an  incapacity  for  receiving  the 


THE  SOWER.  67 

word  of  life.  Nathanael  would  be  a  yet  more  perfect  specimen  of  the 
class  here  alluded  to — "  the  Israelite  indeed,  in  whom  was  no  guile" — 
which  was  saying  in  other  words,  the  man  with  the  soil  of  an  honest  and 
good  heart,  fitted  for  receiving  and  nourishing  the  word  of  everlasting 
life,  and  bringing  forth  fruit  with  patience ; — one  of  a  simple,  truthful, 
and  earnest  nature  ;  who  had  been  faithful  to  the  light  which  he  had, 
diligent  in  the  performance  of  the  duties  which  he  knew,  who  had  not 
been  resisting  God's  preparation  for  imparting  to  him  his  last  and  best 
gift,  even  the  knowledge  of  his  Son.  For  we  must  keep  ever  in  mind 
that  the  good  soil  comes  as  much  from  God,  as  the  seed  which  is  to  find 
there  its  home.  The  law  and  the  preaching  of  repentance,  God's  secret 
and  preventing  grace,  run  before  the  preaching  of  the  word  of  the 
kingdom ;  and  thus  when  that  word  comes,  it  finds  some  with  greater 
readiness  for  receiving  it,  as  a  word  of  eternal  life,  than  others. 

When  the  different  measures  of  prosperity  are  given, — that  the  seed 
brought  forth  in  some  an  hundred  fold,  in  some  sixty,  and  in  some  thirty, 
it  seems  difficult  to  determine  whether  these  indicate  different  degrees 
of  fidelity  in  those  that  receive  the  word,  according  to  which  they  bring 
forth  fruit  unto  God  more  or  less  abundantly,  or  rather  different  spheres 
of  action  more  or  less  wide,  which  they  are  appointed  to  occupy,  as  to 
one  servant  were  given  five  talents,  to  another  two  ;  in  which  instance 
the  diligence  and  fidelity  appear  to  have  been  equal,  and  the  meed  of 
praise  the  same,  since  each  gained  in  proportion  to  the  talents  committed 
to  him,  though  these  talents  were  many  more  in  one  case  than  in  the 
other  : — I  should  suppose,  however,  the  former.* — The  words  which  St. 
Luke  records,  (ver.  18,)  "  Take  heed  therefore  how  ye  hear,  for  whoso- 
ever hath  to  him  shall  be  given,  and  whosoever  hath  not  from  him  shall 
lie  taken  even  that  which  he  seemeth  to  have,"  (see  also  Mark  iv.  23,)  are 
very  important  for  the  avoiding  a  misunderstanding  of  our  parable, 
which  else  might  easily  have  arisen.  The  disciples  might  have  been 
in  danger  of  supposing  that  these  four  conditions  of  heart,  in  which  the 
word  found  its  hearers,  were  permanent,  immutable,  and  definitively 
fixed  ;  and  therefore  that  in  one  heart  the  word  must  flourish,  in  another 
that  it  could  never  germinate  at  all,  in  others  that  it  could  only  prosper 
for  a  little  while.  Now  the  warning,  "  Take  heed  how  ye  hear,"  ob- 
viates the  possibility  of  such  a  mistake,  for  it  tells  us  that,  according  as 

*  So  Irenaeus  (Con.  Hcer.,  1.  5,  c.  39,  §2,)  must  have  understood  it,  and  Cyprian 
{Ep.G9)  :  Eadem  gratia  spiritualis  quae  sequaliter  in  baptismo  a  credentibus  sumitur,  in 
conversatione  atque  actu  nostro  postmodum  vel  minuitur  vel  augetur,  ut  in  Evangelic 
Doniinicum  semen  aequaliter  seminatur,  sed  pro  varietate  terraj  aliud  absumitur,  aliud 
in  multiformem  copiam  vel  tricesimi,  vel  sexagesimi,  vel  centesimi  numeri  fructu  ex- 
uberante  cumulatur. 


68  THE  SOWER. 

the  word  is  heard  and  received,  will  its  success  be — that  while  it  is 
indeed  true  that  all  which  has  gone  before  in  a  man's  life,  will  greatly 
influence  the  manner  of  his  reception  of  that  word,  for  every  event  will 
have  tended  either  to  the  improving  or  deteriorating  the  soil  of  his  heart, 
and  will  therefore  render  it  more  or  less  probable  that  the  seed  of  God's 
word  will  prosper  there,  yet  it  lies  in  him  now  to  take  heed  how  he 
hears,  and  through  this  taking  heed  to  ensure,  with  God's  blessing,  that 
it  shall  come  to  a  successful  issue.     (Compare  Jam.  i.  21.) 

For  while  this  is  true,  and  the  thought  is  a  solemn  one,  that  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  laying  waste  the  very  soil  in  which  the  seed  of  eternal 
life  should  have  taken  root — that  every  act  of  sin,  of  unfaithfulness  to 
the  light  within  us,  is,  as  it  were,  a  treading  of  the  ground  into  more 
hardness,  so  that  the  seed  shall  not  sink  in  it,  or  a  wasting  of  the  soil,  so 
that  the  seed  shall  find  no  nutriment  there,  or  a  fitting  it  to  nourish 
thorns  and  briars  more  kindly  than  the  good  seed  ;  yet  on  the  other 
hand,  even  for  those  who  have  brought  themselves  into  these  evil  condi- 
tions, a  recovery  is  still,  through  the  grace  of  God,  possible : — the  hard 
soil  may  again  become  soft — the  shallow  soil  may  become  rich  and 
deep — and  the  soil  beset  with  thorns  open  and  clear.*  For  the  heavenly 
seed  in  this  differs  from  the  earthly,  that  the  latter  as  it  finds  its  soil,  so 
it  must  use  it,  for  it  cannot  alter  its  nature.  But  the  heavenly  seed,  if 
it  be  acted  upon  by  the  soil  where  it  is  cast,  also  reacts  more  mightily 
upon  it,  softening  it  where  it  is  hard,  (Jer.  xxiii.  29,)  deepening  it  where 
it  is  shallow,  cutting  up  and  extirpating  the  roots  of  evil  where  it  is  en- 
cumbered with  these,  and  wherever  it  is  allowed  free  course,  transform- 
ing and  ennobling  each  of  these  inferior  soils,  till  it  has  become  that 
which  man's  heart  was  at  first,  good  ground,  fit  to  afford  nourishment  to 
that  Divine  Word,  that  seed  of  eternal  life.f 

*  So  Augustine  {Serm.  73,  c.  3) :  Mutamini  cum  potestis ;  dura  aratro  versate,  de 
agro  lapides  projicite,  de  agro  spinas  evelliie.  Nolite  habere  durum  cor,  unde  cito  ver- 
bum  Dei  pereat.  Nolite  habere  tenuem  terram,  ubi  radix  charitatis  alta  non  sedeat. 
Nolite  curis  et  cupiditatibus  secularibus  ofTocare  bonum  semen,  quod  vobis  spargitur 
laboribusnostris.  Etenim  Dominus  seminal ;  sed  nos  operarii  ejus  sumus.  Sed  estote 
terra  bona.  Cf.  Serrn.  101,  c.  3  ;  and  the  author  of  a  sermon,  August.  0pp.,  v.  6,  p.  597, 
Bened.  ed. :  Si  vero  te  terram  infoccundam  aut  spinosam  vel  siccain  sentis,  recurre  ad 
Creatorem  tuuni.  Hoc  enim  nunc  agitur,  ut  innoveris,  ut  foecunderis,  ut  irrigeris  ab 
illo  qui  posuit  desertum  in  stagna  aquarum,  et  terram  sine  aqua  in  exitus  aquarum. 
(Ps.  cvi.  35-37.) 

t  As  our  Saviour  in  this  parable,  so  the  Jewish  doctors  divide  tlie  hearers  of  the 
words  of  wisdom  into  four  classes.  The  best  they  liken  to  a  sponge  that  drinks  in  all 
that  it  receives,  and  again  expresses  it  for  others  ;  the  worst  to  a  strainer  which  allows  all 
the  good  wine  to  pass  through,  (see  Heb.  ii.  1,  jin  noTc  vapapi'ivuinev,)  and  retains  only 
whatever  of  dregs  is  worthless  and  of  no  account,  or  to  a  sieve  that  lets  through  the 


THE  TARES.  gg 


PARABLE  11. 


THE    TARES. 

Matthew  xiii.  24-30,  and  36-43. 

"Another  parable  put  he  forth  unto  them."*  Of  this  parable  also,  that 
''of  the  tares  of  the  field"  we  have  an  authentic  interpretation  from  the 
lips  of  our  Lord  himself.  And  this  is  well :  for  it  is  one,  as  all  students 
of  Church  history  are  aware,  on  the  interpretation  of  which  very  much 
has  turned  before  now.  Allusion  to  it  occurs  at  every  turn  of  the  con- 
troversy which  the  Church  had  to  maintain  with  the  Donatists  ;  and  the 
whole  exposition  of  it  will  need  to  be  carried  on  with  reference  to  dis- 
putes which,  though  seemingly  gone  by,  yet  are  not  in  fact  out  of  date, 
since  in  one  shape  or  another  they  continually  re-appear  in  the  progress 
of  the  Church's  development,  and  in  every  heart  of  man.  To  these 
disputes  we  shall  presently  arrive. — "  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  likened 
unto  a  man  that  sowed  good  seed  in  his  field."  From  our  Lord's  own 
lips  we  learn,  "  He  that  sowed  the  good  seed  is  the  Son  of  man."     This 

fine  flour  and  retains  only  the  bran. — Prudentius  {Con.  Symm.,  1.  2,  v.  1022)  has  put 
this  parable  well  into  verse.     These  are  a  few  lines: 

Christus  .  .  .  dedit  heec  prsecepta  colonis: 

Semina  ciim  sulcis  committitis,  arva  cavete 

Dura  lapillorum  made,  ne  decidat  illuc 

Quod  seritur :  primo  quoniam  praefertile  germen 

Luxuriat :  succo  mox  deficiente,  sub  aBstu 

Sideris  igniferi  sitiens  torretur  et  aret. 

Neve  in  spinosos  incurrant  semina  vepres : 

Aspera  nam  segetem  surgentem  vincula  texunt, 

Ac  fragilescalamos  nodis  rubus  arctat  acutis. 

Et  ne  jacta  viae  spargantur  in  aggere  grana  : 

Haec  avibus  quia  nuda  patent,  passimque  vorantur, 

Immundisque  jacent  fceJa  ad  ludibria  corvis  .  .  . 

Talis  nostrorum  solertia  centuplicatos 

Agrorum  redigit  fructus. 
*  JlaptdrjKev.  The  word  implies  that  he  set  it  before  them  as  one  would  set  forth 
or  propose  a  riddle,  and  is  used  because  the  parable  has  always  something  of  the  spirit- 
ual enigma,  and  as  such  is  to  call  into  exercise  the  spiritual  sense  of  those  to  whom  it  is 
proposed,  that  they  may  discover  its  solution.  (l\Iark  iv.  34,  Ue'Xve,  he  solved  them.) 
Rosenkranz  {Gesch.  d.  Deuts.  Poesie  in  Mittelalt.,  p.  484  seq.)  quotes  from  an  old 
German  poem  a  whole  string  of  riddles  proposed  for  solution  under  the  form  of  para- 
bles. 


70  THE  TARES. 

is  the  most  frequent  title  by  wliich  our  Lord  designates  himself,  though 
it  is  never  given  him  by  any  other,  except  in  a  single  instance,  (Acts 
vii.  56,)  and  then  it  would  seem  only  to  indicate  that  the  glorified  Sa- 
viour appeared  bodily  to  the  eyes  of  Stephen.  He  was  often  understood, 
in  the  early  Church  and  among  the  Reformers,  by  tliis  title  to  signify- 
nothing  more  than  his  participation  in  the  human  nature ;  while  others 
have  said  that  he  assumed  the  name  as  the  one  by  which  the  hoped-for 
Messiah  was  already  commonly  known  among  the  people.  But  it  is 
clear  that,  on  the  contrary,  the  name  was  a  strange  one  to  them,  so  that, 
hearing  it,  they  asked,  "  Who  is  this  Son  of  man  ?"  (John  xii.  34.) 
The  popular  name  for  the  Messiah  at  the  time  of  our  Lord's  coming, 
was  Son  of  David.  (Matt.  ix.  27  ;  xii.  23;  xv.  22  ;  xx.  31,  &c.)  No 
doubt  he  claimed  the  title,  (which  was  already  given  him  in  the  Old 
Testament,  Dan.  viii.  13,)  inasmuch  as  it  was  he  who  alone  realized  the 
idea  of  man,* — the  second  Adam,  who,  unlike  the  first,  should  maintain 
his  position  as  the  head  and  representative  of  the  race, — the  one  true  and 
perfect  flower  which  had  ever  unfolded  itself  out  of  the  root  and  stalk  of 
humanity.  And  using  this  title  he  witnessed  against  the  twofold  error 
concerning  his  person  which  has  ever  been  seeking  to  manifest  itself, — 
the  Ebionite,  to  which  the  exclusive  use  of  the  title  "  Son  of  David  " 
might  have  led,  and  the  Gnostic,  against  which  the  appellation  "  Son  of 
man  "  must  have  been  a  continual  witness. 

At  first  there  might  seem  a  slight  disagreement  between  this  parable 
and  the  preceding,  as  though  the  same  symbol  were  used  in  the  two 
places  to  signify  very  different  things;  for  here  it  is  explained,  "  The 
good  seed  are  the  children  of  the  kingdom,''  there,  "The  seed  is  the  word 
of  God;"  yet  in  reality  there  is  none,  but  only  a  progress  from  that  pa- 
rable to  this.  In  that  the  word  of  God  is  the  instrument  by  which  men 
are  born  anew  and  become  children  of  the  kingdom,  (Jam.  i.  18;  1  Pet. 
i.  23 ;)  that  word  there  is  considered  more  absolutely  in  and  by  itself, 
while  here  it  is  considered  after  it  has  been  received  into  the  heart,  in- 
corporated with  the  man — as  that  which  has  brought  him  into  the  posi- 
tion of  a  child  of  the  kingdom,  and  which  is  now  so  vitally  united  with 
him,  that  tlic  two  cannot  any  more  be  considered  asunder.  (Compare 
Jer.  xxxi.  27  ;   Mos.  ii.  23;  Zech.  x.  9.) 

The  next  words,  "  the  field  is  the  world,''  at  once  bring  us  into  the 
heart  of  the  controversy  referred  to  already.  Words  few  and  slight, 
and  seemingly  of  little  import,  a  great  battle  has  been  fought  over  them, 
greater  perhaps  than  over  any  single  phrase  in  the  Scripture,  if  we  ex- 
cept the  consecrating  words  at  the  Holy  Eucharist.     It  is  well  known 

*  So  Philo  calls  the  Logos  o  aXriOivii  avOponos. 


THE  TARES.  7^ 

that,  putting  aside  the  merely  personal  question  concerning  the  irregu- 
larity of  certain  ordinations,  the  grounds  on  which  the  Donatists  justi- 
fied their  separation  from  the  Church  Catholic  were  these  :  The  idea  of 
the  Church,  they  said,  is  that  of  a  perfectly  holy  body  ;  holiness  is  not 
merely  one  of  its  essential  predicates,  but  the  essential,  to  which  all 
others  must  be  suboi'dinated,  the  exclusive  note  of  the  Ciiurch.  They 
did  not  deny  that  it  was  possible  that  hypocrites  might  lie  concealed  in 
its  bosom,  but  where  the  evidently  ungodly  were  suffered  to  remain  in 
communion  with  it,  not  separated  off  by  the  exercise  of  discipline,  then  it 
forfeited  the  character  of  the  true  Church,  and  the  faithful  were  to  come 
out  from  it;  since  remaining  in  its  communion,  by  the  very  presence  of 
the  others  they  would  themselves  be  defiled.  In  support  of  this  view, 
they  maintained  that  such  passages  as  Isai.  lii.  1,  and  all  other  which 
spoke  of  the  future  freedom  of  the  Church  from  evil,  were  meant  to  be 
applicable  to  it  in  its  present  condition,  and  consequently,  where  they 
were  not  applicable,  there  could  not  be  the  Church.  Hero,  as  on  so 
many  other  points,  the  Church  owes  to  Augustine,  not  the  forming  of  her 
doctrine,  for  that  she  can  owe  to  no  man,  but  the  bringing  out  into  her 
clear  consciousness  that  which  hitherto  she  had  implicitly  possessed,  yet 
had  not  worked  out  into  a  perfect  clearness,  even  for  herself.  By  him 
she  replied,  not  in  any  way  gainsaying  the  truth  which  the  Donatists 
proclaimed,  that  holiness  must  be  an  essential  predicate  of  the  Church, 
but  only  refusing  to  accept  their  idea  of  that  holiness,  and  showing  how 
in  the  Church,  which  they  had  forsaken,  this  quality  was  to  be  found, 
and  combined  with  other  as  essential  qualities  ; — catholicity,  for  in- 
stance, to  which  they  could  make  no  claim. 

The  Church  Catholic,  he  replied,  despite  all  appearances  to  the  con- 
trary, is  an  holy  body,  for  they  only  are  its  members  who  are  in  true 
and  living  fellowship  with  Christ,  therefore  partakers  of  his  sanctifying 
Spirit.  All  others,  however  they  may  have  the  outward  notes  of  belong- 
ing to  it,  are  in  it,  but  not  of'ii :  they  press  upon  Christ,  as  that  throng- 
ing multitude  ;  they  do  not  touch  him,  as  that  believing  woman.  (Luke 
viii.  45.)  There  are  certain  outward  conditions  without  which  one  can- 
not pertain  to  his  Church,  but  with  which  one  does  not  necessarily  do  so. 
And  they  who  are  thus  in  it  but  not  of  it,  whether  hypocrites  lying  hid, 
or  open  offenders,  who  from  their  numbers  may  not  without  greater  evils 
ensuing  be  expelled,*  do  not  defile  the  true  members,  so  long  as  these 

*  Augustine's  view  of  the  extent  to  which  discipline  should  be  enforced,  and  the 
questions  of  prudence  which  should  determine  its  enforcing,  may  be  judged  from  the 
following  passage.  Having  referred  to  these  parables,  and  to  the  separation  of  the 
sheep  and  goats,  Matt,  xxv.)  he  proceeds  (Ad  Don.  post  Coll.,  c.  5) :  Quibus  parabolis 
etfiguris  Ecclesia  praenunciata  est  usque  ad  finem  sa:culi  bonos  et  nialossimul  habitura, 


72  THE  TARES. 

share  not  in  their  spirit,  nor  communicate  with  their  evil  deeds.  They 
are  like  the  unclean  animals  in  the  same  ark  as  the  clean,  goats  in  the 
same  pastures  with  the  sheep,  chaff  on  the  same  barn-floor  as  the  grain, 
tares  growing  in  the  same  field  with  the  wheat,  endured  for  a  while,  but 
in  the  end  to  be  separated  off,  the  evil  from  the  good. 

The  Donatists  wished  to  make  the  Church  in  its  visible  form  and  his- 
toric manifestation,  identical  and  co-extensive  with  the  true  Church 
which  the  Lord  knoweth  and  not  man.  Augustine  also  affirmed  the 
identity  of  the  Church  now  existing  with  the  final  and  glorious  Church  : 
but  he  denied  that  they  were  co-extensive.  For  now  the  Church  is 
clogged  with  certain  accretions  which  shall  hereafter  be  shown  not  to 
belong,  and  never  to  have  belonged,  to  it :  he  affirmed — not,  as  his  op- 
ponents affirmed  of  him,  two  Churches,  but  two  conditions  of  one  and  the 
same  Church  ;  the  present,  in  which  evil  is  endured  in  it, — the  future, 
in  which  it  shall  be  free  from  all  evil ; — not  two  bodies  of  Christ,  but 
one  body,  in  which  now  are  wicked  men,  but  only  as  evil  humours  in 
the  natural  body,  winch  in  the  day  of  perfect  health  will  be  expelled 
and  rejected  altogether,  as  never  having  more  than  accidentally  belonged 
to  it;  and  he  laid  especial  stress  upon  this  fact,  that  the  Lord  himself 
had  not  contemplated  his  Church  in  its  present  state  as  perfectly  free 
from  evil.*     In  proof  he  appealed  to  this  parable  and  that  of  the  Draw. 

ita  ut  mali  bonis  obesse  non  possint,  cum  vel  ignorantur,  vel  pro  pace  et  tranquillitate 
Ecclesias  tolerantur,  si  eosprodi  aut  accusari  non  oportuerit,  aut  aliis  bonis  non  potue- 
rint  demonstrari :  ita  sane  ut  neque  emendalionis  vigilantia  quiescat,  corripiendo,  de- 
gradando,  excommunicando,  ceterisque  coercitionibus  licitis  afque  concefsis,  qiite  salva 
unitatis  pace  in  Ecclesia  quotidie  fiunt,  caritate  servata,  .  .  .  ne  forl6  aut  indisciplinata 
patientia  foveat  iniquitatem,  aut  inipatiens  disciplina  dissipet  unitatem.  This,  among 
his  anti-Donatist  treatises,  is  the  best  for  giving  a  notion  of  that  part  of  the  controversy 
on  which  this  parable  specially  bears. 

*  Augustine  {Serm.  351,  c.  4):  Multi  enim  corriguntur  ut  Petrus,  multi  toleran- 
tur ut  Judas,  multi  nesciuntur  donee  adveniat  Dominus,  qui  illuminet  abscondita  ten- 
ebrarum,  et  manifestet  consilia  cordium.  And  in  another  place  :  Homo  sum  et  inter 
homines  vivo,  nee  mihi  arrogare  audeo  meliorem  domum  meam  quam  area  Noah. 
He  often  rebukes  the  Donatists  for  their  low  Pharisaical  views  concerning  what  the 
separation  from  sinners  meant.  Thus  {Serm.  88,  c.  20)  :  Displicuit  tibi  quod  quisque 
peccavit,  non  tetigisti  imniundum.  Redarguisti,corripuisti,monuisti,adhibuisti  etiam,si 
res  exegit,  congruam  et  qua;  unitatem  non  violat  disciplinam,  existi  inde  : — see  much 
more  that  is  excellent.  In  another  place  he  asks.  Did  the  i)rophet  of  old,  who  said, 
"Go  ye  out  of  the  midst  of  her,"  (Isai.  lii.  11,)  himself  separate  from  the  .Jewish 
church? — Continendo  se  a  consensu  non  tetigit  immundum  :  objurgando  autem  exiit 
liber  in  conspectu  Dei:  cui  neque  sua  Deus  peccata  imputat,  quia  non  fecit,  neque 
aliena,quia  non  approbavit,  neque  negligentiani,  quia  non  tacuit,  neque  superbiam,  quia 
in  unitate  permansit.  See  also  Ad  Don.  Post  Coll.,  c.  20.  And  once  more  :  Ce- 
cidit  Angelas  ;  numquid  inquinavit  cesium  ?  Cecidit  Adam  ;  numquid  inquinavit 
Paradisum  ?  Cecidit  unus  de  filiis  Noc  ;  numquid  inquinavit  Justi  domum  1     Cecidit 


THE  TARES.  73 

net, — that  as  tares  are  mingled  with  wheat,  and  the  bad  fish  witli  the 
good,  so  the  wicked  with  the  righteous,  and  should  remain  so  mingled 
to  the  end  of  the  present  age  ;*  and  this  not  merely  as  an  historic  fact, 
but  that  all  attempts  to  have  it  otherwise  are  here  expressly  forbidden. 
The  Donatists  then  were  in  fact  acting  as  the  servants  in  the  parable 
would  have  done,  if,  after  the  master's  distinct  prohibition,  they  had 
gone  and  sought  forcibly  to  root  out  the  tares. 

There  will  be  occasion  hereafter  to  note  how  the  Donatists  sought  to 
escape  the  argument  drawn  from  tliat  other  parable.  They  were  put  to 
hard  shifts  to  reply  to  this,  but  made  answer, — "  By  the  Lord's  own 
showing  "  the  Jield"  is  not  the  Church,  but  the  world.  The  parable, 
therefore,  does  not  bear  on  the  dispute  betwixt  us  and  you  in  the  least, 
that  dispute  being  not  whether  ungodly  men  should  be  suffered  in  the 
world,  (that  is  plain  enough,)  but  whether  they  should  be  endured  in  the 
Church. "■]"  But  it  must  be  evident  to  every  one  who  is  not  warped  by 
a  dogmatic  interest,:}:  that  the  parable  is,  as  the  Lord  announces  at  its 
first  utterance,  concerning  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  or  the  Church.  It 
required  no  special  teaching  to  acquaint  the  disciples,  that  in  the  world 
there  would  ever  be  a  mixture  of  good  and  bad,  though  they  must  have 
been  so  little  prepared  to  expect  the  same  in  the  Church,  that  it  was 
very  needful  to  warn  them  beforehand,  both  that  they  might  not  be 
offended,  and  think  the  promises  of  God  had  failed,  when  the  evil  should 
appear  ;  and  also  that  they  might  know  how  to  behave  themselves,  when 
that  mystery  of  iniquity,  now  foretold,  should  begin  manifestly  to  work. 

JuJas;  numquid  inquinavit  apostolorum  chores] — This  extract  is  from  one  of  the 
sermons  in  the  volume  of  Sennones  Inediti  of  Augustine  lately  published,  (they  are 
indeed  inedited  still,)  at  Paris.  This  Sermon  is  among  the  not  very  many,  which 
bear  the  stamp  of  unquestionable  genuineness  upon  them. 

*  Augustine :  Alia  est  agri  conditio,  alia  quies  horrei. 

t  See  how  Augustine  answers  this  argument.  Ad  Don.  jmst  Coll.,  c.  8.  As  the 
Donatists  professed  to  make  much  of  Cyprian's  authority,  Augustine  quotes  often  from 
him,  (as  Con.  Gaudent.,  1.  2,  c.  4,)  words  which  show  that  he  understood  the  parable 
as  one  relating  to  the  Church  :  Nam  etsi  videntur  in  EcclesicL  esse  zizania,  non  tamen 
impediri  debet  aut  fides  aut  caritas  nostra,  ut  quoniam  zizania  esse  in  Ecclesia  cerni- 
mus,  ipsi  de  Ecclesia  recedamus.  Nobis  tantummodo  laborandum  est,  ut  frumentum 
esse  possimus,  ut  cixva.  cceperit  frumentum  Dominicis  horreis  condi,  fructum  pro  opere 
nostro  et  labore  capiamus. 

X  Commentators  who  have  interpreted  the  parable,  irrespectively  of  that  contro- 
versy one  way  or  the  other,  acknowledge  this.  Thus  Calvin :  Quanquam  autem 
Christus  postea  subjicit  mundum  esse  agrum,  dubium  tamen  non  est,  quin  proprie  hoc 
nomen  ad  Ecclesiam  aptare  voluerit,  de  q\xi  exorsus  fuerat  sermonem.  Sed  quoniam 
passim  aratrum  suum  ducturus  erat  per  omnes  mundi  plagas,  ut  sibi  agros  excoleret  in 
toto  mundo,  ac  spargeret  vitae  semen,  per  synecdochen  ad  mundum  transtulit,  quod.' 
parti  tantiim  magis  quadrabat. 

6 


74  THE  TARES. 

Nor  need  the  term  *•'  world  "  here  used  perplex  us  in  the  least :  it  was 
the  world,  and  therefore  was  rightly  called  so,  till  this  seed  was  sown  in 
it,  but  thenceforth  was  the  world  no  longer.  No  narrower  word  would 
have  sufficed  for  him,  in  whose  prophetic  eye  the  word  of  the  Gospel 
was  contemplated  as  going  forth  into  all  lands,  and  sown  in  every  part 
of  the  great  outfield  of  the  nations. 

"  But  while  men  slept,  his  enemy  came  and  sowed  *  tares  among  the 
wheat,  and  went  his  loay."  Our  Lord  did  not  invent  here  a  form  of 
malice  without  example,  but  alluded  to  one  which,  though  elsewhere 
unnoted  in  Scripture,  was  familiar  enough  to  his  hearers — one  so  easy 
of  execution,  involving  so  little  risk,  and  yet  effecting  so  great  and  so 
lasting  a  mischief,  that  it  is  not  strange,  that  where  cowardice  and 
malice  met,  this  should  often  have  been  the  shape  in  which  they  dis- 
played themselves.  We  meet  traces  of  it  in  many  directions.  Thus 
in  the  Roman  law  the  possibility  of  this  form  of  injury  is  contemplated, 
and  a  modern  writer  illustrating  Scripture  from  the  manners  and  habits 
of  the  East,  with  which  he  had  become  familiar  through  a  sojourn  there, 
affirms  the  same  to  be  now  practised  in  India.  "  See,"  he  says,  "  that 
lurking  villain  watching  for  the  time  when  his  neighbour  shall  plough 
his  field  :  he  carefully  marks  the  period  when  the  work  has  been  fin- 
ished, and  goes  in  the  night  following,  and  casts  in  what  the  natives  call 
pandinellu,  i.  e.  pig- paddy  :  this  being  of  rapid  growth,  springs  up  before 
the  good  seed,  and  scatters  itself  before  the  other  can  be  reaped,  so  that 
the  poor  owner  of  the  field  will  be  for  years  before  he  can  get  rid  of  the 
troublesome  weed.  But  there  is  another  noisome  plant  which  these 
wretches  cast  into  the  ground  of  those  they  hate,  called  perum-pirandi, 
which  is  more  destructive  to  vegetation  than  any  other  plant.  Has  a 
man  purchased  a  field  out  of  the  hands  of  another,  the  offended  person 
says,  '  I  will  plant  the  perum-pirandi  in  his  grounds.'  "f 

Many  have  made  the  first  words  here  significant,  and  suppose  that 
they  indicate  the  negligence  and  lack  of  watchfulness  on  the  part  of 
rulers  in  the  Church,  whereby  ungodly  men  should  creep  in  unawares, 
introducing  errors  in  doctrine   and  in  practice.:}:     (Acts   xx.  29,  30 ; 

*  In  the  Vulgate,  su;5erseininavit,  as  in  the  Rhemish,  ocersowed,  according  to  the 
better  reading,  iirtancipcv,  which  Lachmann  retains. 

t  Roberts'  Oriental  Illustrations,  p.  541.  A  friend  who  has  occupied  a  judicial 
station  in  India  confirms  this  account.  We  are  not  without  this  form  of  malice  nearer 
home.  Thus  in  Ireland  I  have  known  an  outgoing  tenant,  in  spite  at  his  ejection,  to 
sow  wild  oats  in  the  fields  which  he  was  leaving.  These,  like  the  plant  mentioned 
above,  ripening  and  seeding  themselves  before  the  crops  in  which  they  were  mingled, 
it  became  next  to  impossible  to  get  rid  of  them. 

}  So  Augustine  (Quttst.  ex  Matth.,  qu.  9) :  Ciim  negligentius  agerent  prtepositi 


THE  TARES.  75 

Jude  4  ;  2  Pet.  ii.  1,  2,  19.)  But  seeing  it  is  thus  indefinitely  put,  and 
the  servants,  who  should  have  watched,  if  any  should  have  done  so,  are 
first  designated  at  a  later  stage  of  the  history,  and  then  without  anything 
to  mark  a  past  omission  on  their  part,  it  would  seem  that  the  men  who 
slept  are  not  such  as  should  have  done  otherwise,  but  the  phrase  is  equi- 
valent to  "  at  night,"  and  means  nothing  further.  (Job  xxxiii.  15.) 
This  enemy  seized  his  opportunity,  when  all  eyes  were  closed  in  sleep, 
and  wrought  the  secret  mischief  upon  which  he  was  intent,  and  having 
wrought  it  undetected,  withdrew. 

"  The  enemy  that  soiced  "  the  tares,  we  learn,  "  is  the  devil,"*  so  that 
we  behold  Satan  here,  not  as  he  works  beyond  the  limits  of  the  Church, 
deceiving  the  world,  but  in  his  far  deeper  skill  and  malignity,  as  he  at 
once  mimics  and  counterworks  the  work  of  Christ  :  in  the  words  of 
Chrysostom,  "  after  the  prophets,  the  false  prophets  ;  after  the  apostles, 
the  false  apostles;  after  Christ,  Antichrist. "f 

We  may  further  notice  with  what  distinctness  the  doctrine  concern- 
ing Satan  and  his  agency,  his  active  hostility  to  the  blessedness  of  man, 
of  which  there  is  so  little  in  the  Old  Testament,  comes  out  in  our  Lord's 
teaching  in  the  New.  As  the  lights  become  brighter,  the  shadows  be- 
come deeper  ;  but  till  the  mightier  power  of  good  was  revealed,  we 
were  in  mercy  not  suffered  to  know  how  mighty  was  the  power  of  evil  : 
and  even  here  it  is  in  each  case  only  to  the  innermost  circle  of  the  dis- 
ci pies,  that  the  explanation  concerning  Satan  is  given.  So  it  was  not 
till  the  Son  of  man  actually  appeared  on  the  stage  of  the  world,  that 
Satan  came  distinctly  forward  upon  it  also  ;  but  the  instant  that  Christ 
opens  his  ministry  for  the  setting  up  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  at  the  same 
instant  Satan  starts  forward  as  the  hinderer  and  adversary  of  it,  the 
tempter  of  him  who  is  the  head  and   prince  of  this  kingdom.:}:     And 

Ecclesiae  ;  and  Chrysostom.  H.  de  Sto.  Victore  {Annott.  in  Matth.) :  Mortem  sig- 
r.ificat  Apostolorum  sive  torporem  prselatorum.  '  But  Grolius  more  rightly :  'Avdpu- 
TTODf,  hie  indefinitum  est,  non  universale;  quasi  dicas,  cum  dormiretur:  hoc  autem 
nihil  est  aliud  quam  descriptio  opportunitatis ; — and  Cajetan's  remark  has  value  :  Cum 
dormirent  homines,  non  dicit  custodes,  si  enim  dixisset  custodes,  intelligeremus  negli- 
gentiam  custodum  accusari,  sed  dicit  homines,  ut  inculpabiles  intelligamus,  naturali 
somno  ocupatos.  Jerome's  Dormiente  j'atre-fainilids  (Ad.  Lucif.,)  is  only  explicable 
as  other  than  an  error  on  this  view. 

*  Zizaniator,  as  therefore  he  has  been  called  ;  see  Du  Cange,  s.  v.  zizanium  ;  and 
by  Tertullian  {De  Animd,  c.  16,)  Avenarum  superseminatorem,  et  frumentaricB  segetis 
nocturnum  interpolatorem.  When  Ignatius  exhorts  the  Ephesians  (c.  10)  that  no 
one  be  found  among  them,  tou  6ia/36\ov  Poravri,  no  doubt  there  is  an  allusion  to  this 
parable. 

t  Cf.  Tertullian,  Be  PrcBScr.  Haret.,  c.  31. 

t  Bengel  (on  Ephes.  vi.  12)  has  observed  this :  Quo  apertius  quisque    Scripturas 


JQ  THE  TARES. 

instead  of  hearing  less  of  Satan,  as  the  mystery  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
proceeds  to  unfold  itself,  in  the  last  book  of  Scripture,  that  which  details 
the  fortune  of  the  Church  till  the"  end  of  time,  we  hear  more  of  him 
and  he  is  brouo-ht  in  more  evidently  and  openly  working  than  in  any 
other. 

It  is  very  observable,  too,  that  Satan  is  spoken  of  as  his  enemy, 
the  enemy  of  the  Son  of  man  ;  for  here,  as  in  so  many  other  places,  the 
great  conflict  is  spoken  of  as  rather  between  Satan  and  the  Son  of  man, 
than  between  Satan  and  God.  It  was  part  of  the  great  scheme  of  re- 
demption, that  the  victory  over  evil  should  be  a  moral  triumph,  not  a 
triumph  obtained  by  a  mere  putting  forth  of  superior  strength.*  We 
can  see  how  important  for  this  end  it  was,  that  man,  who  lost  the  battle, 
should  also  win  it,  (1  Cor.  xv.  21,)  and  therefore  as  by  and  through 
man  the  kingdom  of  darkness  was  to  be  overthrown,  so  the  enmity  of  the 
Serpent  was  specially  directed  against  the  seed  of  the  woman,  the  Son 
of  man.  The  title  given  him  is  "  The  wicked  one  y"  the  article  is  em- 
phatic, and  points  him  out  as  the  absolutely  evil,  of  whom  the  ground  of 
his  being  is  evil.  For  as  God  is  light,  and  in  him  is  no  darkness  at  all, 
(1  John  i.  5  ;  Jam.  i.  17,)  so  Satan  is  darkness,  and  in  him  is  no  light; 
there  is  no  truth  in  him.  Man  is  in  a  middle  position  ;  he  detains  the 
truth  in  unrighteousness;  light  and  darkness  in  him  are  struggling; 
but,  whichever  may  predominate,  the  other  is  there,  kept  down  indeed, 
but  still  with  the  possibility  of  manifesting  itself.  Herein  lies  the  pos- 
sibility of  a  redemption  for  man.  that  his  will  is  only  perverted  ;  but 
Satan's  will  is  inverted,  for  he  has  said  what  it  is  never  possible  for  a 
man  to  say,  or  at  least/idly  to  act  upon,  "  Evil,  be  thou  my  good  ;"  and 
therefore  as  far  as  we  can  see,  a  redemption  and  restoration  are  impossible 
for  him. 

It  makes  much  for  the  beauty  of  the  parable,  and  is  full  of  instruction, 
that  wheat  and  tares  are  not  seeds  of  different  kinds,  but  that  the  last  is  a 
degenerate  or  bastard  wheat  ;'j"  so  that,  in  the  very  emblems  which  the 

liber  de  oeconomia  et  gloria  Christi  agit,  eo  apertius  rursum  de  regno  contraiio  tene- 
branim. 

*  In  Augustine's  memorable  words:  Diabolus  non  potentia  Dei  sed  justitia  super- 
andus  erat. 

+  It  is  well  known  that  the  word  ^i^dvtov  nowhere  occurs  except  here,  and  in  the 
Greek  and  Latin  Fathers  who  have  drawn  it  from  this  parable.  The  Eiijmol.  Mag. 
gives  another  derivation  of  the  word  besides  that  quoted  by  Schleusner,  and  a  better, 
though  even  that  will  scarcely  command  assent :  vapa  t6  aiToi  Kai  t^dvb),  that  which 
grows  side  by  side  with  the  wheat.  Tertullian  always  renders  it  by  avena,  which  is 
incorrect ;  neither  is  Augustine  sufficiently  exact  when  he  says,  Omnis  immunditia  in 
segete  zizania  dicitur  ;  nor  again  is  it,  as  our  translators  would  seem  to  have  under- 
stood it,  the  vicia,  but   the  a7pa,  or  lolium  temulentum,  (in  German,  Tollkorn,  in 


THE  TARES.  77 

Lord  uses,  the  Manichsean  error  is  guarded  against,  which,  starting  from 
the  (falsely  assumed)  fact,  that  wheat  and  tares  are  different  in  kind, 
proceeds  to  argue,  that  as  tares  by  no  process  of  culture  can  become 
wheat,  so  nehher  can  the  children  of  the  wicked  one  become  children  of 
the  kingdom.  Satan  is  no  Ahriman  who  can  create  children  of  darkness  ; 
he  can  only  spoil  children  of  light,  Calvin*  himself,  whatever  may  have 
been  the  case  with  some  who  call  themselves  by  his  name,  is  careful  to 
guard  against  that  conclusion  here,  which  would  have  been  an  abuse  of 
parabolical  language,  a  pressing   of  accidental  circumstances  too  far.f 


French,  yvroie,)  having  that  addition  to  distinguish  it  from  the  lolium  proper,  with 
which  it  has  nothing  but  the  name  in  common,  because  of  the  vertigo  which  it  causes, 
when  mingled  with  and  eaten  in  bread.  This  in  the  East,  despite  its  poisonous  qual- 
ities, not  uncommonly  happens — it  being  so  hard  to  separate  it  from  the  wheat.  The 
assertion  made  above,  that  it  is  a  degenerate  wheat,  seems,  I  think,  perfectly  made 
out.  Lightfoot  quotes  these  words,  distinctly  asserting  it,  from  the  Talmud.  "  '  Wheat 
and  zunin  are  not  seeds  of  different  kinds.'  Where  the  gloss  is  this,'  zunin  is  a  kind 
of  wheat  which  is  changed  in  the  earth,  both  as  to  its  form  and  to  its  nature.'  "  And 
in  a  passage  quoted  by  Buxtorf,  {Lex.  Talm.,  p.  680,)  this  is  noted  as  part  of  the  pro- 
gressive deterioration  of  nature,  which  went  hand  in  hand  with  man's  wickedness; 
"  they  sowed  wheat  and  the  earth  brought  forth  zunin."  Michafilis  indeed  {Mos. 
Recht,  V.  4,  p.  322,)  says  that  these  Rabbis,  who  probably  never  saw  a  corn-field  in 
their  lives,  are  not  to  be  listened  to  in  the  matter  :  see  also  Ambrose  Hexaeifl.,  1.  3,  c. 
10.  Yet  on  the  other  hand  Pliny  {H.  N.,  1,  18,  c.  17,)  says  of  the  lolium  as  of  some 
other  plants,  inter  frugum  morbus  potius  quam  inter  ipsius  terree  pestem  numeraverim  : 
and  an  old  Scholiast  upon  the  Georgics,  on  the  words,  Infelix  lolium,  writes  thus  : 
Triticum  et  hordeum  in  lolium  mutantur.  This  quite  explains  the  difficulty  of  know- 
ing them  apart,  and  the  danger,  therefore,  of  plucking  up  one  for  the  other:  since  only 
when  the  grains  begin  to  form,  that  of  the  lolium  being  dark,  sometimes  nearly  black, 
the  difference  clearly  reveals  itself.  The  tendency  of  wheat,  badly  cultivated,  to  de- 
generate is  well  known,  and  is  noted  by  Columella  (De  Be  Rust.,  1.  2,  c.  9) :  Omne 
triticum  solo  uliginoso  post  tertiam  sationem  convertitur  in  siliginem.  The  same 
happened  with  the  Grape  (see  Gesenius  on  Isai.  v.  2)  :  "  It  brought  forth  wild  grapes" 
(labruscas).  The  tendency  of  the  uncared-for  tree  to  fall  away  from  its  first  perfec- 
tion, of  the  neglected  seed  to  worsen,  is  but  another  of  the  infinite  and  wonderful  ana- 
logies which  the  world  of  nature  supplies  to  the  workl  of  man. — By  far  the  fullest  and 
most  satisfying  account  of  the  ^iC,,\vi.w  is  given  by  Schultetus  {Crit.  Sac.  v.  6,  p.  2026)  : 
I  had  not  seen  it  when  the  note  above  was  written,  but  it  arrives  altogether  at  the 
same  conclusions. 

*  Observing  how  the  Manichaeans  have  abused  this  passage  he  proceeds  :  Atqui 
scimus,  quidquid  vitii  est  tarn  in  diabolo,  quam  in  hominibus  non  aliud  esse  quam  in- 
tegrae  naturae  corruptelam  ; — and  Augustine,  on  a  passage  exposed  to  like  abuse,  (John 
viii.  44,)  "  Ye  are  of  your  father  the  devil,"  guards  against  such,  explaining  it, — Imi- 
tando  non  nascendo.  Compare  Irenaeus,  Con.  Har.,  1.  4,  c.  41.  §  2,  and  Grotius  on 
Matt.  vii.  18  ;  and  who  has  not  heard  in  arguments  concerning  predestination,  how 
goats  can  never  become  sheep,  nor  sheep  goats  ?  (Matt.  xxv.  32,  33.) 

t   Chrysostom  rather  has  right,  when  {De  Pwnit.,  Horn.  8)  he  compares  the  Church 


78  THE  TARES. 

even  supposing  that  the  tares  and  wheat  had  been  altogetlier  different  in 
their  kinds.  But  the  fact  in  natural  history,  noticed  above,  besides  res- 
cuing this  passage  from  the  possibility  of  being  so  abused,  makes  also  this 
image  peculiarly  instructive  and  curiously  adapted  to  the  setting  forth 
the  origin  of  evil,  that  it  is  not  a  generation,  but  a  degeneration  ;  that, 
as  Augustine  often  expresses  it,  it  has  not  an  efficient,  but  only  a  deji. 
cient  cause.* 

Having  sown  his  tares,  the  enemy  "  went  his  way."  The  work  did 
not  evidently,  and  at  first  sight,  appear  to  be  his.  How  often,  in  the 
Church,  the  beginnings  of  evil  have  been  scarcely  discernible, — how 
often  has  that  which  bore  the  worst  fruit  in  after-times,  looked  at  first 
like  a  higher  form  of  good.  St.  Paul,  indeed,  could  see  the  mystery  of 
iniquity,  which,  in  the  apostolic  times,  was  already  working — could 
detect  the  imnclujn  saliens  out  of  which  it  would  unfold  itself;  but  to 
most,  evil  would  not  appear  as  evil  till  it  had  grown  to  more  ungodli- 
ness :  just  as  the  tares  did  not,  to  the  servants,  appear  to  be  such  till 
"  the  Made  ivas  sjjnwg  iij)  and  brought  forth  fndt."  All  who  have  written 
on  the  subject  have  noted  the  great  similarity  that,  as  might  be  expected, 
exists  between  the  wheat  and  this  lolium  or  tare,  while  yet  in  the  blade, f 
so  that  they  are  only  distinguishable  when  the  ear  is  formed  ;  thus  ful- 
filling literally  the  Lord's  words,  "  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them." 
Augustine,  noting  how  it  was  only  when  the  blade  began  to  ripen  and 
bring  forth  fruit,  that  the  tares  began  also  to  appear  in  their  true  cha- 
racter, most  truly  remarks,  that  it  is  only  the  opposition  of  good  which 
makes  evil  to  appear.  "  None,"  he  says,  "  appear  evil  in  the  Church, 
except  to  him  who  is  good ;"  and  again,  "  When  one  shall  have  begun 
to  be  a  spiritual  man,  judging  all  things,  then  errors  begin  to  appear  to 
him  ;":}:  and  in  another  place  he  makes  the  following  observations,  drawn 
from  the  depths  of  his  Christian  experience  :  "  It  is  a  great  labour  of  the 
good,  to  bear  the  contrary  manners  of  the  wicked  ;  by  which  he  who  is 
not  offended  has  profited  little,  for  the  righteous,  in  proportion  as  he  re- 

to  a  better  ark.  Into  the  other  ark,  as  ilie  animals  entered  so  they  came  out ;  an 
hawk  entered  in,  and  an  liawk  came  forth,  a  wolf  entered  in,  and  a  wolf  came  forth. 
But  into  this  an  hawk  has  entered  in,  and  a  dove  comes  out;  a  wolf  has  entered  in, 
and  a  sheep  issues  forth  ;  a  serpent  has  entered  in,  and  a  Inmb  comes  forth. 

*  De  Civ.  Dei.  I.  12,  c.  7. 

t  The  testimony  of  .Terome,  himself  resident  in  Palestine,  may  here  be  adduced: 
Inter  triticum  et  zizania,  quod  nos  appellamus  lolium,  quamdiu  herba  est,  et  nondum 
culmus  venit  ad  spicam,  grandis  similitudo  est,et  in  discernendo  aut  nulla  aut  perdifFi- 
cilis  distantia. 

t  Quasi,  ex  Matt.,  qu.  12  :  where  is  to  be  found  an  admirable  exposition  of  the 
whole  parable. 


THE  TARES.  79 

cedes  from  his  own  wickedness,  is  grieved  by  that  of  others."*  As  there 
must  be  light,  with  which  to  contrast  the  darkness,  height  wherewith  to 
measure  depth,  so  there  must  be  holiness  to  be  grieved  at  unholiness  : 
and  this  is  true,  not  only  in  the  collective  Church,  but  in  each  individual 
member  of  it,  that  as  the  new  man  is  formed  in  him,  the  old  man  will 
become  more  and  more  displeasing, — will  come  more  and  more  into 
distinct  opposition. 

"  So  the  servants  of  the  householder  came  and  said,  unto  Mm,  Sir,  didst 
not  thou  sow  good  seed  in  thy  field?  from  whence  then  hath  it  tares?" 
Theophylact  interprets  this  of  the  angels,  indignant  that  there  should  be 
heresies,  scandals,  and  ofiences  in  the  Church  ;  for  having  explained, 
^' while  men  slept, ''^  of  the  comparative  negligence  of  the  householder's 
servants,  that  is,  of  some  Church  rulers  who  ought  better  to  have  kept 
the  borders  of  the  Church  from  the  incursions  of  the  enemy,  he  now  finds 
it  inconvenient  to  understand  the  same  servants  as  those  so  much  offended 
by  the  mischief  which  had  been  done.  But  the  angels  are  so  clearly 
pointed  out  (ver.  30)  as  different  from  the  servants,  liiat  this  must  be  a 
mistake  ,  and  even  granting  that  the  words  "  while  men  slept,''  do  indi- 
cate, as  he  supposes,  the  negligence  of  some  who  ought  to  have  watched, 
still  it  is  easy  to  say,  some  slept,  and  some  wished  to  do  away  with  the 
consequence  of  the  others'  negligence.  These  servants  are  not  angels, 
but  men,  speaking  out  of  the  same  spirit  as  animated  those  disciples, 
who  would  fain  have  commanded  fire  to  come  down  from  heaven  on  the 
inhospitable  Samaritan  village.  Those  disciples,  as  the  servants  here, 
did  well  that  they  had  a  righteous  zeal  for  their  Master's  honour  ;  but 
in  each  case  the  zeal  needed  to  be  tempered  and  restrained. 

The  question  which  they  ask,  "  Didst  not  thou  soio  good  seed  in  thy 
field  .?"  is  not  put  merely  to  give  opportunity  for  the  householder's  re- 
ply :  but  expresses  well  the  perplexity,  the  surprise,  the  inward  ques- 
tionings, which  must  often  be  felt,  which  in  the  first  ages,  before  long 
custom  had  too  much  reconciled  to  the  mournful  spectacle,  must  have 
been  felt  very  strongly  by  all  who  were  zealous  for  God,  at  the  woful 
and  unexpected  appearance  which  the  visible  Church  presented.  Where 
was  the  "  glorious  Church,  not  having  spot  or  wrinkle,  or  any  such 
thing  ?"  Well,  indeed,  might  the  faithful  have  questioned  their  own 
spirit,  have  poured  out  their  hearts  in  prayer,  of  which  the  burden 
should  have  been  nearly  this,  "  Didst  not  thou  sow  good  seed  in  thy  field  ? 
from  whence  then  hath  it  tares  ? — didst  thou  not  constitute  thy  Church  to 

*  Tantum  enim  torquet  justum  iniquitas  aliena,  quantum  recedit  a  sua.  Cf. 
Enarr.  in  Ps.  cxix.  4,  and  in  Ps.  ex!.:  Nondum  sum  totus  instauratus  ad  imaginem 
fabricatoria  mei :  coepi  resculpi,  et  ex  ea  parte  qua  reformer,  disciplicet  mihi  quod  de- 
forme  est. 


80  THE  TARES. 

be  a  pure  and  holy  communion  ? — is  not  the  doctrine  such  as  should 
only  produce  fruits  of  righteousness  ?  whence  then  is  it  that  even  with- 
in the  holy  precincts  tkemselves,  there  should  be  so  many  who  them- 
selves openly  sin  and  cause  others  to  sin  ?"* 

But  in  the  householder's  reply,  the  mischief  is  traced  up  to  its  origin  : 
"An  eneiny  hath  done  this."  It  is  attributed  not  to  the  imperfection,  ig- 
norance, weakness,  which  cling  to  everything  human,  and  which  would 
prevent  even  a  Divine  idea  from  being  more  than  very  inadequately 
realized  by  men  ;  but  to  the  distinct  counterworking  of  the  great  spirit- 
ual enemy  ;  they  are  "  spiritual  wickednesses."  No  doubt  in  the  fur- 
ther question,  "  Wi/t  thou  then  that  we  go  and  gather  them  up  ?"  the 
temptation  to  use  outward  power  for  the  suppression  of  error,  a  tempta- 
tion which  the  Church  itself  has  sometimes  found  it  difficult  to  resi-t, 
finds  its  voice  and  utterance. f  But  they  were  unfit  to  be  trusted  here. 
Their  zeal  was  but  an  Elias  zeal  at  the  best.  (Luke  ix.  54.)  They 
who  thus  speak  have  often  no  better  than  a  Jehu's  "  zeal  for  the  Lord." 
And  therefore  " /te  said,  Nay."  By  this  prohibition  are  doubtless  for- 
bidden all  such  measures  for  the  excision  of  heretics  and  other  offenders, 
as  shall  leave  them  no  possibility  for  after  repentance  or  amendment ; 
indeed  the  prohibition  is  so  clear,  so  express,  so  plain,  that  whenever  we 
meet  in  Church  history  with  something  that  looks  like  the  carrying  into 
execution  this  proposal  of  the  servants,  we  may  suspect,  as  Bengel  says, 
that  it  is  not  wheat  making  war  on  tares,  but  tares  seeking  to  root  out 
wheat.  The  reason  of  the  prohibition  is  given  ;  "  Lest  while  ye  gather 
up  the  tares,  ye  root  vp  also  the  wheat  with  them."  This  might  be, 
either  by  rooting  up  what  were  now  tares,  but  hereafter  should  become 
wheat — children  of  the  wicked  one,  who,  by  faith  and  repentance,  should 
become  children  of  the  kingdom;:}: — or  it  might  happen  through  the  mis- 

*  Menken  :  "  This  question,'  Whence  then  hnth  it  fares  ?'  is  the  result  of  our  first 
study  of  Church  history,  and  remains  afterwards  the  motto  of  Church  history,  and  the 
riddle  whicii  should  be  solved  by  help  of  a  faithful  history  ;  instead  of  which,  many  so- 
called  Church  historians  [authors  of  Ancient  Christianity,  and  the  like],  ignorant  of 
the  purpose  and  of  the  hidden  glory  of  the  Church,  have  their  pleasure  in  the  tares,  and 
imagine  themselres  wonderfully  wise  and  useful,  when  out  of  Church  history,  which 
ought  to  be  the  history  of  the  Light  and  the  Truth,  they  have  made  a  shameful  history 
of  error  and  wickedness.  They  have  no  desire  to  edify,  to  further  holiness  or  the 
knowledge  of  the  truth  ;  but  at  the  expense  of  the  Church  would  gratify  a  proud  and 
ignorant  world." 

+  Augustine  {Quast.  ex  Matth.,  qu.  12)  :  Potest  ei  suboriri  voluntas,  ut  tales 
homines  de  rebus  humanis  auferat,  si  aliquam  teniporis  habcat  facultatem  :  sed  utriirn 
facere  debeal,  jusiitiam  Dei  consulit,  utrCim  hoc  ei  prwcipiat  vcl  permittat,  et  hoc  offi- 
cium  esse  hominem  velit. 

X  Jerome  ;  Monemur,  ne  cilo  amputemus  fratreni  :  quia  fieri  potest,  ut  ille,  qui 
hodie  noxio  depravatuB  ait  dogniate,  eras  resipiscat,  et  defendere  incipiat  veritatem. 


THE  TARES,  81 

take  of  the  servants,  who,  with  the  best  intentions,  should  fail  to  distin- 
guish between  these  and  those,  leaving  the  tares  and  uprooting  the 
wheat.  It  is  only  the  Lord  himself,  the  Searcher  of  hearts,  who  with 
absolute  certainty  "  knoweth  them  that  are  his."  But  the  Romish  ex- 
positors, and  those  who,  in  earlier  times,  wrote  in  the  interests  of  Rome, 
in  these  words,  "  lest  ye  root  up  the  wheat  with  them,^^  find  a  loophole 
whereby  they  may  escape  the  prohibition  itself.  Thus  Aquinas  says, 
the  prohibition  is  only  binding,  when  there  exists  this  danger  of  pluck- 
ing up  the  wheat  together  with  the  tares  ;*  and  Maldonatus,  that  in 
each  particular  case  the  householder  is  to  judge  whether  there  be  such 
danger  or  no.  The  Pope,  he  adds,  is  now,  the  representative  of  the 
householder,  and  to  him  the  question  is  to  be  put,  "  Wilt  thou  that  ive 
go  and  gather  up  the  tares  V  and  he  concludes  his  exposition  with  an 
exhortation  to  all  Catholic  princes,  that  they  imitate  the  zeal  of  these 
servants,  and  rather,  like  them,  need  to  have  their  eagerness  restrained, 
than  require  to  be  urged  on  to  the  task  of  rooting  out  heresies  and 
heretics. 

The  householder  proceeds  to  declare — not  that  the  tares  shall  never 
be  plucked  up,  but  that  tliis  is  not  the  time,  and  they  not  the  doers. 
"  Let  both  grow  together  until  the  harvest."  In  these  words  the  true  doc- 
trine concerning  Antichrist,  not  indeed  the  personal  Antichrist,  but  the 
antichristian  power,  is  implicitly  declared.  We  learn  that  evil  is  not, 
as  so  many  dream,  gradually  to  wane  and  to  disappear  before  good,  the 
woi-ld  before  the  Church,  but  is  ever  to  develop  itself  more  fully,  even 
as  on  the  other  side,  good  is  to  unfold  itself  more  and  more  mightily  also. 
Thus  it  will  go  on,  till  at  last  they  stand  face  to  face,  each  in  its  highest 
manifestation,  in  the  persons  of  Christ  and  of  Antichrist ;  on  the  one 
hand,  an  incarnate  God,  on  the  other,  the  man  in  whom  the  fulness  of 
all  Satanic  power  will  dwell  bodily.  Both  are  to  grow,  evil  and  good, 
till  they  come  to  an  head,  till  they  are  ripe,  one  for  destruction,  and  the 
other  for  full  salvation.  And  they  are  to  grow  together ;  the  visible 
Church  is  to  have  its  intermixture  of  good  and  bad  until  the  end  of  time, 
and  by  consequence  that  the  fact  of  the  bad  being  found  mingled  with 
the  good  will  in  no  wise  justify  a  separation  from  it,  or  an  attempt  to  set 
up  a  little  Church  of  our  own.f     Where  men  will  attempt  this,  besides 

*  Summa  Theol.,  2^  'i^,  qu.  10  ;  Cum  metus  iste  non  subest,  .  .  .  non  doimiat 
severitas  disciplince. 

t  Calvin's  words  are  excellent  :  Est  enim  Iijec  periculosa  tentatio,  nuUam  Ecclesi- 
am  putare,  ubi  non  appareat  perfecta  puritas.  Nam  quicunque  liac  occupatus  fuerit, 
necesse  tandem  erit,  ut,  discessione  ab  omnibus  aliis  facta,  solus  sibi  sanctus  videatur 
in  mundo,  aut  peculiarem  sectam  cum  paucis  hypocritis  instituat.  Quid  ergo  causae 
habuit  Paulus  cur  Ecclesiam  Dei  Corinthi  agnosceret  ?  nempe  quia  Evangelii  doctri- 


82  THE  TARES. 

the  guilt  of  transgressing  a  plain  command,  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  what 
fatal  effects  on  their  own  spiritual  life  it  must  have,  what  darkness  it 
must  bring  upon  them,  and  into  what  a  snare  of  pride  it  must  cast  them. 
For  while  even  in  the  best  of  men  there  is  the  same  intermixture  of  good 
and  evil  as  there  is  outwardly  in  the  Church,  such  conduct  will  infal- 
libly  lead  a  man  to  the  wilful  shutting  his  eyes  both  to  the  evil  which  is 
in  himself,  and  in  the  little  schismatical  body  which  he  will  then  call 
the  Church,  since  only  so  the  attempt  will  even  seem  to  be  successful. 
Thus  Augustine  often  appeals  to  the  fact  that  the  Donalists  had  not 
succeeded, — that  they  themselves  would  not  dare  to  assert  that  they  had 
succeeded, — in  forming  what  should  even  externally  appear  a  pure  com- 
munion :  and  since  by  their  own  acknowledgment  there  might  be,  and 
probably  were,  hypocrites  and  concealed  ungodly  among  themselves,  this 
was  enough  to  render  all  such  passages  as  Isai.  lii.  1,  as  inapplicable 
to  them  as  the  Catholic  Church  in  its  present  condition.  And  yet  on  the 
strength  of  this  their  assumed  purity,  they  displayed  a  spirit  of  the  most 
intolerable  pride  and  presumptuous  uncharitableness  towards  the  Church 
from  which  they  had  separated.  And  the  same  sins  cleave  more  or  less 
to  all  schismatical  bodies,  which,  under  plea  of  a  purer  communion, 
have  divided  from  the  Church  Catholic  :* — the  smallest  of  these,  from 
its  very  smallness  persuading  itself  that  it  is  the  most  select  and  purest, 
being  generally  the  most  guilty  in  this  matter.  Not  that  there  is  not 
something  in  every  man  which  inclines  him  to  the  error  ;  every  young 
Christian  in  the  time  of  his  first  zeal  is  tempted  to  be  somewhat  of  a 
Donatist  in  spirit.  Nay,  it  would  argue  little  love  or  holy  earnestness 
in  him,  if  he  had  not  this  longing  to  see  the  Church  of  his  Saviour  a 
glorious  Church  without  spot  or  wrinkle.  But  he  must  learn  that  the 
desire,  righteous  and  holy  as  in  itself  it  is,  yet  is  not  to  find  its  fulfilment 
in  this  present  evil  time  ;  that  on  the  contrary,  the  suffering  from  false 
brethren  is  one  of  the  pressures  upon  him,  which  is  meant  to  wring  out 
from  him  a  more  earnest  prayer  that  the  kingdom  of  God  may  appear, f 


nam,  baptismum,  coenam  Domini,  quibus  symbolis  censeri  debet  Ecclesia,  apud  eo3 
cernebat. 

*  See  Augnsiine  {Coll.  Carth.,  d.  3,  c.  9)  for  an  extraordinary  instance  of  this 
pride  on  the  part  of  the  Donatist  adversaries  of  the  Church. 

t  Fuller  (Holy  Slate,  b.  5,  c.  2)  enumerates  si.x  reasons  why  in  the  kingdom  of 
grace  wicked  men  should  be  inseparably  mingled  with  godly  : — "  First,  because  hy- 
pocrites can  never  be  severed  but  by  him  that  can  search  the  heart  ;  secondly,  be- 
cause if  men  should  make  the  separation,  weak  Christians  would  be  counted  no  Chris- 
tians, and  those  who  have  a  grain  of  grace  under  a  load  of  imperfections,  would  be  count- 
ed reprobates  ;  thirdly,  because  God's  vessels  of  honour  for  all  eternity,  not  as  yet 
appearing,  but  wallowing   in  sin,  would  be  made  castaways ;  fourthly,  because  God 


THE  TARES.  83 

He  learns  that  all  self-willed  and  impatient  attempts,  such  as  have  been 
repeated  again  and  again,  to  anticipate  that  perfect  communion  of  saints 
are  indeed  works  of  the  flesh,  and  that  however  well  they  may  promise 
at  the  first,  no  blessing  will  rest  upon  them,  nor  will  they  for  long  even 
appear  to  be  attended  with  success.* 

There  are  some  in  modern  times  who,  in  fear  lest  arguments  should 
be  drawn  from  this  parable  to  the  prejudice  of  attempts  to  revive  stricter 
discipline  in  the  Church,  have  sought  to  escape  the  cogency  of  the  argu- 
ments drawn  from  it,f  observing  that  incur  Lord's  explanation  no  notice 
is  taken  of  the  proposal  made  by  the  servants,  (ver.  28,)  nor  yet  of  the 
householder's  reply  to  that  proposal,  (ver.  29.)  They  argue,  therefore, 
that  this  parable  is  not  instructive  of  what  the  conduct  of  the  servants 
of  an  heavenly  Lord  ought  to  be,  but  merely  prophetic  of  what  generally 
will  be  the  case  in  the  Church — that  this  offer  of  the  servants  is  merely 
brought  in  to  afford  an  opportunity  for  the  master's  reply,  and  that  of 
that  the  latter  is  the  only  significant  portion.  But  it  is  clear  that  when 
Christ  asserts  that  it  is  his  purpose  to  make  a  complete  and  solemn  sepa- 
ration at  the  end,  he  implicitly  forbids,  not  the  exercise  in  the  mean  time 
of  a  godly  discipline,  not,  where  that  has  become  necessary,  absolute 
exclusion  from  Church-fellowship — but  any  attempts  to  anticipate  the 
final  irrevocable  separation,  of  which  he  has  reserved  the  execution  to 
himself.:}:     That  shall  not  take  place  till  the  end  of  the  present  dispen- 

by  the  mixture  of  the  wicked  with  the  godly  will  try  the  watchfulness  and  patience  of 
his  servants ;  fifthly,  because  thereby  he  will  bestow  many  favours  on  the  wicked,  to 
clear  his  justice  and  render  them  the  more  inexcusable ;  lastly,  because  the  mixture  of 
the  wicked  grieving  the  godly,  will  make  them  the  more  heartily  pray  for  the  day 
of  judgment." 

*  Augustine  (Enarr.  in  Ps.  xcix.  1)  asks  :  Quo  se  separaturus  est  Christianus  ut 
non  gemat  inter  falsos  fratres?  Solitudines  petat  ?  sequunturscandala.  Separaturus  est 
se  qui  bene  proficit,  ut  nullum  omnino  hominem  patiatur  ?  quid  si  et  ipsum  antequam 
proficeret  nemo  vellet  pati  ?  Si  ergo  quia  proficit,  nullum  hominem  vuli  pati,  eo  ipso 
quo  non  vult  aliquem  hominem  pati,  convincitur,  quod  non  profecerit.  An  quia  veloces 
pedes  tibi  videris  habuisse  ad  transeundem,  praecisurus  es  pontem  ? — The  whole  pas- 
sage is  too  long  to  quote,  but  deeply  instructive  concerning  the  vanity  of  every  attempt 
to  found  a  Church  on  a  subjective  instead  of  an  objective  basis,  on  the  personal  holi- 
ness of  the  members,  instead  of  recognizing  one  there  to  be  founded  for  us,  where  the 
pure  word  of  God  is  preached,  and  the  sacraments  administered  by  those  who  are  duly 
commissioned  to  these  offices.  How  admirable  again  are  his  words  in  another  place 
{Con.  Cresc,  1.  3,  c.  35)  :  Fugio  paleam  ne  hoc  sim  ;  non  aream,  ne  nihil  sim  :  and 
see  also  Serm.,  164,  c.  7,  8. 

t  Sttriger,  in  the  Evang.  Kirch.  Zeit.,  1833,  and  an  able  writer  in  the  British  Cri- 
tic, No.  52,  p.  385. 

t  TertuUian  {Apol.,  c.  41)  :  Qui  semel  aeternum  judicium  destinavit  post  seculi 
finem,  non  precipitat  discretionem  quae  est  conditio  judicii,  ante  seculi  finem. 


84  THE  TARES. 

sation  ;* — not  till  the  time  of  the  harvest  f  will  the  householder  com- 
mand,— and  then  he  will  give  the  command  not  to  these  servants,  but  to 
the  reapers, — that  the  tares  be  gathered  out  from  among  the  wheat. 
Not  till  the  end  of  the  world  will  the  Son  of  man  send  forth  his  servants 
— nor  even  then  his  earthly  ministering  servants,:}:  but  "  his  angels,  and 
they  shall  gather  out  of  his  kingdom  all  things  that  offend  §  and  all  lohich 
do  iniquity" — in  the  words  of  Zephaniah  (i.  3,)  "  the  stumbling-blocks 
with  the  wicked." 

The  lot  of  the  tares  is  to  be  gathered  into  bundles  |1  and  consumed 

The  <!vvTi\tia  Tov  aiiovos,  or  avvT.  Toiv  alojvcov,  (so  Heb.  ix.  26,)  the  moment  of  the 
passing  over  from  this  aiihv  to  the  coming,  the  juncture  of  the  two  aeras,  (see  Job  xxiv. 
20,  LXX.  fic^pi  cvvTcXcias  i/>tordj  (cat  (r/cdrotif ,)  the  present,  called  aioiv  fi'coTuf,  (Gal.  i.  4,) 
or  6  vvD  aicjv  (Tit.  ii.  12)  =:  icdo-^os  ovto;,  with  the  future  termed  aiiiv  ipx^d/jcfo;  (Mark  x. 
30),  a'iuivci  CTTCp^onii/oi,  (EplieS.  ii.  7,)  aUbv  b  //cXXoji/,  (Heb.  vi.  5)  =  oiVou^ek;  I'l  ^tcWovaa, 
(Heb.  ii.  5).  The  phrase  is  equivalent  to  the  riXn  tojv  aidjvuv,  (1  Cor.  x.  11,)  the  ex- 
tremities of  the  two  aeras,  the  end  of  the  one  and  the  commencement  of  the  other. 

t  Bishop  Horsley  {Bill.  Crit.,  v.  3,  p.  344,;  distinguishes  between  the  vintage  and 
the  harvest,  which  are  the  two  images  under  which  the  consummation  of  the  present 
age  are  so  commonly  represented.  "  The  vintage  is  always  an  image  of  the  season  of 
judgment,  but  the  harvest  of  the  ingathering  of  the  objects  of  God's  final  mercy.  I  am 
not  aware  that  a  single  unexceptionable  instance  is  to  be  found,  in  which  the  harvest  is  a 
type  of  judgment.  In  Rev.  xiv.  15,  16,  the  sickle  is  thrust  into  the  ripe  harvest,  and 
the  earth  is  reaped,  i.  e.  the  elect  are  gathered  from  the  four  winds  of  heaven.  The 
wheat  of  God  is  gathered  into  his  barn.  (Matt.  xiii.  30.)  After  this  reaping  of  the 
earth  the  sickle  is  applied  to  the  clusters  of  the  vine,  and  they  are  cast  into  the  great 
winepress  of  the  wrath  of  God.  (Rev.  xiv.  18-20.)  This  is  judgment.  In  Joel  iii. 
13,  the  ripe  harvest  is  the  harvest  of  the  vine,  i.  e.  the  grapes  fit  for  gathering,  as  ap- 
pears by  the  context.  In  Jer.  Ii.  33,  the  act  of  threshing  the  corn  upon  the  floor,  not 
the  harvest,  is  the  image  of  judgment.  It  is  true  the  burning  of  the  tares  in  our  Sa- 
viour's parable,  (Matt,  xiii.,)  is  a  work  of  judgment,  and  of  the  time  of  harvest,  previous 
to  the  binding  of  the  sheaves ;  but  it  is  an  accidental  adjunct  of  the  business,  not  the 
harvest  itself." — It  may  be  a  question  whether  the  manner  in  which  he  makes  our  par- 
able fit  into  his  scheme  is  quite  satisfactory. 

t  Augustine:  Audes  usurpare  officium  alienum,  quod  nee  in  messe  erit  tuum  ? 
And  Cyprian  (with  reference  to  2  Tim.  ii.  20,  21) :  Nos  operam  demus  et  quantum 
possumus,  laboremus,  ut  vas  aureum  et  argenteum  simus.  CtEterum  fictilia  vasa  con- 
fringere  Domino  soli  concessum  est,  cui  et  virga  ferrea  data  est.  Jerome  {Adv.  Lucif.) : 
Nemo  potest  Christi  palmani  sibi  assumere,  nemo  ante  diem  judicii  de  hominibus  judi- 
care.     Si  jam  mundata  est  Ecclesia,  quid  Domino  reservamus  1 

§  Ta  aKavSaXa.  J^KdnSaXov  (in  its  older  form  anaviaXriQpuv)  is  that  part  of  a  trap  or 
snare  on  which  the  bait  is  placed,  and  which  being  touched  by  the  animal,  gives  way, 
and  causes  the  snare  to  draw  suddenly  tight ;  then,  generally,  a  snare.  In  the  New 
Testament,  it  is  transferred  to  spiritual  things,  and  includes  whatever,  entangling  as  it 
were  men's  feet,  might  cause  them  to  fall ;  it  is  therefore  =  nfidaKOftfta.  On  account  of 
its  derivation  it  is  nearly  allied  to  rayi'j  and  Oi'ipu,  and  we  find  it  used  together  with 
them,  Rom.  xi.  9. 

II  Augustine  explains  this  something  in  the  fashion  of  Dante's  hell,  in  which   the 


THE  TARES.  §5 

with  fire,  as  of  the  land  bearing  thorns  and  briars  the  end  is  to  be  burned. 
(Heb.  vi.  8.)  In  David's  words  (2  Sam.  xxiii,  6,  7,)  "  The  sons  of 
Belial  shall  be  all  of  tbem  as  thorns  thrust  away  .  .  .  and  they  shall 
be  utterly  burned  with  fire,"  or,  as  it  is  here  expressed,  the  angels 
"  shall  cast  them  into  the  furnace  of  fire."  Elsewhere  (Mark  ix.  43- 
48,)  the  woe  of  hell  is  described  under  an  image  borrowed  from  the 
valley  of  the  children  of  Hinnom,  where  carcases  were  cast  out  that 
from  time  to  time  were  consumed  with  fire  ;  here  from  that  most  fearful 
of  all  forms  of  punishment,  one  not  indeed  in  use  among  the  Jews,  for 
we  must  look  at  David's  act  (2  Sam.  xii.  31)  as  an  excess  of  severity, 
but  one  with  which  they  were  not  unacquainted,  that  is,  death  by  fire. 
(Gen.  xxxviii.  24.)  It  was  in  use  among  the  Chaldfeans,  (Jer.  xxix. 
22  ;  Dan.  iii.  6,)  and  in  the  Jewish  tradition,  which  is  probably  of  great 
antiquity,  Nimrod  cast  Abraham  into  a  furnace  of  fire,  for  refusing  to 
worship  his  false  gods,  and  in  modern  times  Chardin  makes  mention  of 
furnaces  with  a  like  object  in  Persia.*  That  dreadful  punishment  by 
fire  supplies  the  image  here,  and  doing  so,  makes  exceedingly  impro- 
bable the  explanation  which  some  have  given  of  the  gnashing,  which  they 
rather  understand  as  a  chattering,  of  the  teeth, — that  it  is  the  expression 
of  the  pain  arising  from  excessive  cold,"j"  so  that  they  imagine  a  kind  of 
Dantean  hell,  with  alterations  of  cold  and  heat,  alike  unendurable.  But 
the  wailing  and  gnashing  of  teeth  are  evidently  no  more  than  expres- 
sions of  rage  and  impatience,  (Acts  vii.  54,)  under  the  sense  of  intoler- 
able pain  and  unutterable  loss. 

But  after  it  has  been  thus  done  with  the  wicked,  "  then  shall  the 
righteous  shine  forth^  as  the  sun  in  the  kingdom  of  their  Father."    As 


wicked  of  one  kind  are  gathered  into  one  place  ;  for  on  this  gathering  into  bundles,  he 
says :  Hoc  est,  rapaces  cum  rapacibus,  adulteros  cum  adulteris,  homicidas  cum  homici- 
dis,  fures  cum  furibus,  derisores  cum  derisoribus,  similes  cum  similibus. 

*  Voy.  en  Perse,  Langles'  ed.,  v.  6,  p.  118. 

t  See  SuicER,  s.  v.  I3pvyn6g,  which  some  make  =  Tpm/jos  djoircoi',  but  it  is  simpler 
to  say  with  Bernard :  Fletus  ex  dolore,  stridor  dentium  ex  furore ;  for  in  Cyprian's 
words  (Ad  Demet.) :  Erit  tunc  sine  fructu  pcenitentiaj  dolor,  poenae  inanis  ploratio,  et 
inefficax  deprecatio.  See  Ambrose,  Exp.  in  Luc,  1.  7,  c.  205,  206,  and  Gerhard, 
Loc.  TAeoZZ.,  1.  31,  c.  6,  §46. 

X  'EK\an\pov(Tiv,  in  which  full  force  is  to  be  given  to  the  preposition.  Schleusner 
indeed  says, — Paritm  differt  a  simplici  Xu/^ttw, — but  Passow  very  difi'erently, — Her- 
vorstrahlen,  sich  plotzlich  in  aller  Herrlichkeit  hervorthun.  There  are  two  beautiful 
similitudes  in  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas,  (1.3,  sim.3  and  4,)  engaged  in  setting  forth  the 
same  truth,  though  under  a  different  image.  The  Seer  is  shown  in  the  first  a  number 
of  trees,  all  which,  while  it  is  winter,  are  alike  without  their  kaves,  and  seeming  there- 
fore to  him  all  alike  dead ;  and  he  is  told  that  as  the  dry  and  the  green  trees  are  not 
distinguishable  from  one  another  in  the  winter,  while  all  alike  are  leafless  and  bare,  so 


86  THE  TARES. 

fire  was  the  element  of  the  dark  and  cruel  kingdom  of  hell,  so  is  light 
of  the  pure  heavenly  kingdom.*  Then,  when  the  dark  hindering  ele- 
ment  is  removed,  shall  this  element  of  light  which  was  before  struggling 
with  and  obstructed  by  it,  come  forth  in  its  full  brightness.  (See  Col. 
iii.  3  ;  Rom.  viii.  18  ;  Prov.  xxv.  4,  5.)  A  glory  shall  be  revealed  in 
the  saints  :  it  shall  not  merely  be  brought  to  them,  and  added  from  with- 
out ;  but  rather  a  glory  which  they  before  had,  but  which  did  not  before 
evidently  appear,  shall  burst  forth  and  show  itself  openly,  as  did  the 
Lord's  hidden  glory  once  in  the  days  of  his  flesh,  at  the  moment  of  his 
Transfiguration.  That  shall  be  the  day  of  the  manifestation  of  the  sons 
of  God  ;  they  shall  shine  forth  as  the  sun  when  the  clouds  are  rolled 
away  ;  (Dan.  xii.  3;)  they  shall  evidently  appear  and  be  acknowledged 
by  all  as  the  children  of  light,  of  that  God  who  is  "  the  Father  of 
Lights.*'!  (Jam.  i.  17.)  And  then,  but  not  till  then,  shall  be  accom- 
plished those  glorious  prophecies  which  are  so  often  repeated  in  the  Old 
Testament, — "  Henceforth  there  shall  no  more  come  into  thee  the  un- 
circumcised  and  the  unclean."  (Isai.  Iii.  1.)  "  In  that  day  there  shall 
be  no  more  the  Canaanile  in  the  house  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts."  (Zech. 
xiv.  21.)  "  Thy  people  also  shall  be  all  righteous."  (Isai.  Ix.  21.) 
Compare  Isai.  xxxv.  8  ;  Joel  iii.  17  ;  Ezek.  xxxvii.  21-27  ;  Zeph. 
iii.  13. 

neither  in  the  present  age  are  the  just  from  sinners.  In  the  second,  he  is  again  shown 
the  trees,  but  now  some  of  them  are  putting  forth  leaves,  while  others  are  still  remain- 
ing bare.  Thus  shall  it  be  in  the  future  age,  which  for  the  just  shall  be  a  summer,  and 
they  shall  be  declared  openly,  while  their  hidden  life  shall  then  manifest  itself;  but  for 
the  sinners  it  shall  still  be  winter,  and  they,  remaining  without  leaf  or  fruit,  shall  as 
dry  w'jod  be  cut  down  for  the  burning.  The  resemblance  between  these  visions  and 
singulaily  beautiful  passages  in  Augustine,  (Enarr.  in  Ps.  xxxvi.  2,  and  in  Ps.  cxlviii. 
13,)  where  exactly  the  same  image  is  used,  is  very  remarkable  ;  and  again  he  says  of 
the  Christian  as  he  is  now,  (In  Ep.  Joh.  Tract.  5,)  Gloria  ejus  occulta  est ;  cilm  vene- 
rit  Dominus,  tunc  apparebit  gloria.  Viget  enim,  sed  adhuc  in  hyeme  ;  viget  radix,  sed 
quasi  aridi  sunt  rami.  Intus  est  medulla  quae  viget,  intus  sunt  folia  arborum,  intus 
fructus:  sed  aestatem  expectant.  Compare  Minucius  Felix  (p.  329,ed.  Ouzel.):  Ita 
corpus  in  secuio  ut  arbores  in  hibemo,  occultant  virorem  ariditate  mentitA.  Quid  fes- 
tinas  ut  cruda  adhuc  hieme  reviviscat  et  redeat  ?  Expectandum  nobis  ctiam  corporis 
ver  est. 

*  It  is  exactly  thus  that  in  the  Mahommedan  Theology,  the  good  angels  are  com- 
pact of  light,  and  the  evil  ones  of  fire. 

t  Calvin  :  Insignis  consoiatio,  quod  filii  Dei  qui  imnc  vel  squalore  obsiti  jacent,  vel 
latent  nullo  in  pretio,  vel  etiam  probris  cooperti  sunt,  tunc  quasi  sereno  cocio,  et  dis- 
cussis  omnibus  nebulis,  verc  et  ad  liquidum  semel  conspicui  fulgebunt :  suos  in  sublime 
attollet  l''ilius  Dei,  et  omnem  fulig'ncm  absterget,  qua  nunc  eorum  fulgor  obruitur. — It 
is  the  saying  of  a  Jewish  expositor  of  Ps.  Ixxii. :  Quemadmodilm  Sol  et  Luna  illuminant 
hoc  seculum,  ita  futurum  est  ut  justi  illuminent  seculum  futurum. 


THE  MUSTARD  SEED.  97 


PARABLE  III, 


THE   MUSTARD   SEED. 

Matt.  xiii.  31,  32  ;  Mark  iv.  30-32  ;  Luke  xiii.  18,  19. 

This  parable,  and  the  one  that  follows,  would  seem,  at  first  sight,  merely 
repetitions  of  the  same  truth  ;  but  here,  as  in  every  other  case,  upon 
nearer  inspection,  essential  differences  reveal  themselves.  The  other 
onhe  Leaven,  is  concerning  the  kingdom  of  God,  which  "  cometh  not 
with  observation  ;"  this  is  concerning  that  same  kingdom  as  it  displays 
itself  openly,  and  cannot  be  hid  :  that  declares  the  intensive,  this  the  ex- 
tensive, development  of  the  Gospel.  That  sets  forth  the  power  and 
action  of  the  truth  on  the  world  brought  in  contact  with  it, — this  the 
power  of  the  truth  to  develop  itself  from  within  itself, — how  it  is  as  the 
tree  shut  up  within  the  seed,  which  will  unfold  itself  according  to  the 
inward  law  of  its  own  being.  Both  have  this  in  common,  that  they  de- 
scribe the  small  and  slight  beginnings,  the  gradual  progress,  and  the  final 
marvellous  increase  of  the  Church, — how,  to  use  another  image,  the 
stone  cut  out  without  hands,  should  become  a  great  mountain,  and  fill 
whole  earth.  (Dan.  ii.  34,  35.) — Chrysostom  *  traces  finely  the  con- 
nexion between  this  parable,  and  all  thai  has  gone  before.  In  the  parable 
of  the  Sower,  the  discides  had  heard  that  three  parts  of  the  seed  sown 
perished,  and  only  a  fourth  part  prospered  ;  again  they  had  heard  in  that 
of  the  Tares,  and  of  the  further  hinderances  which  beset  even  this  part 
that  remained :  lest  then  they  should  be  tempted  quite  to  lose  heart  and 
to  despair,  the  Lord  spake  these  two  parables  for  their  encouragement. 
My  kingdom,  he  would  say,  will  survive  these  losses,  and  surmount  these 
hinderances,  until,  small  as  its  first  beginnings  may  appear,  it  will,  like 
a  mighty  tree,  fill  the  earth  with  its  branches, — like  potent  leaven, 
diffuse  its  influence  through  all  the  world. 

The  comparison  which  he  uses,  likening  the  growth  of  his  kingdom 
to  that  of  a  tree,  was  one  with  which  many  of  his  hearers  may  have  been 
already  familiar  from  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament.    The  growth 

*  So  also  Lyser,  with  more  immediate  reference  to  the  queslion  with  which  the 
parable  is  introdnced  in  St.  Mark  (iv.  30) :  Cum  ea  sit  Evangelii  sors,  ut  tarn  multa 
ejus  fructum  impediant,  et  eidem  Satanas  tot  modis  insidietur,  ut  vix  fructus  aliquis 
sperari  possit,  quid  de  illo  dicemus  ?  poteritne  in  rerum  natura  aliquid  inveniri,  quod 
ejus  exilitatem  excusare,  illudque  contemptu  vindicare  queat  ? 


gg  TEE  MUSTARD  SEED. 

of  a  worldly  kingdom  had  been  set  forth  under  this  image,  (Dan. 
iv.  10-12;  Ezek.  xxxi.  3-9,)*  that  also  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 
(Ezek.  X.  vii.  22-24;  Ps.  Ixxx.  8.)t  But  why,  it  may  be  asked, 
is  a  mustard-tree  $  here  chosen  as  that  with  which  the  comparison 
shall  be  made  ?  Many  nobler  plants,  as  the  vine,  or  taller  trees,  as 
the  cedar,  might  have  been  named.  But  this  is  chosen,  not  with  refer- 
ence to  its  ultimate  greatness,  but  with  reference  to  the  proportion 
between  the  smallness  of  the  seed  and  the  greatness  of  the  plant 
which  unfolds  itself  from  thence.  For  this  is  the  point  to  which 
the  Lord  calls  especial  attention, — not  its  greatness  in  itself,  but  its 
greatness  when  compared  with  the  seed  from  whence  it  springs;  since 
what  he  desired  to  set  before  his  disciples  was — not  merely  that  his  king- 
dom should  be  glorious,  but  that  it  should  be  glorious,  despite  its  wAk 
and  slight  and  despised  beginnings.  Nor,  indeed,  was  the  mustard  seed, 
though  in  appearance  so  trivial,  altogether  without  its  significance  and 
acknowledged  worth  in  antiquity.  It  ranked  among  the  nobler  Pytha- 
gorean symbols,^  it  was  esteemed  to  possess  medicinal  virtues  against 
the  bites  of  venomous  creatures,  and  against  poisons,  and  was  used  as  a 
remedy  in  many  diseases. ||     Nor  can  I,  with  a  modern  interpreter,  find 

*  See  Havernick,  Comm.  iib.  Daniel,  p.  139. 

t  In  a  striking  poem,  found  in  the  Appendix  to  Fell's  Cyprian,  the  growth  of  the 
kingdom  of  God,  under  the  figure  of  that  of  a  tree,  is  beautifully  set  forth.  The  reli- 
gious reverence  with  which  all  antiquity  was  accustomed  to  look  upon  trees  (see  CrSu- 
zer's  Sijinbolik,  third  edit.  v.  4,  p.  621,)  should  not  here  be  left  out  of  mind. 

X  The  most  accurate  inquiries  of  naturalists  would  seem  to  point  out  as  the  mus- 
tard-tree of  this  parable,  not  that  which  goes  by  this  name  in  Western  Europe,  but  the 
Salvadora  Persica,  commonly  called  in  Syria  now,  kharaal.  So  Dr.  Lindley  in  his 
Flora  Jiidica ;  and  see  in  the  AthencEum  of  March  23,  1844,  an  interesting  paper  by 
Dr.  Royle,  read  before  the  Asiatic  Society.  Captains  Irby  and  Mangles,  describing 
this  khardal,  say,  "  It  has  a  pleasant,  though  a  strongly  aromatic  taste,  exactly  re- 
sembling mustard,  and  if  taken  in  any  quantity,  produces  a  similar  irritability  of  the 
nose  and  eyes."  There  is  on  the  other  hand  a  learned  discussion  in  the  Gentleman's 
Magazine,  June  1844,  calling  in  question  Dr.  Royle's  conclusions  ;  but  not  seriously 
shaking  them. 

§  Plin.,  //.  N.,  1.  20,  c.  87. 

II  Pliny  (Ibid.)  Plautus  applies  to  it  a  harder  epithet,  sinapis  sfcZera^a,  because 
of  its  sharpness  which  draws  tears  from  the  eyes  ;  and  Columella's  line  is  often  quoted  : 

Seque  lacessenti  fletum  factura  sinapis. 
Yet  this  too  may  be  a  part  of  its  fitness  here.  For  neither  is  the  Gospel  all  sweets, 
but  may  be  compared  to  the  mustard  seed,  entiuKvovaav  uKpeXiixois  rhv  xpvxfjv.  (Clem. 
Alex.,  Strom., !.  5.)  The  comparison  is  carried  out  to  greater  length  in  the  homily  of 
an  uncertain  author :  Sicut  sinapis  granum  cJim  sumimus,  vultu  contristamur,  fronte  con- 
trahimur,  ad  lacrimas  permovemur,  et  ipsam  salubritatem  corporis  nostri  cum  quodam 
fletu  austeritatis  accipimus,  .  .  .  ita  ergo  et  ciim  fidei  Christianas  mandata  percipi- 
mus,  contristamur  animo,  afHigimur  corpore,  ad  lacrimas  permovemur,  et  ipsam  salu- 


THE  MUSTARD  SEED.  89 

anything  so  very  ridiculous  in  tlie  supposition,  that  \he  Saviour  chose 
this  seed  on  account  of  further  qualities  which  it  possessed,  that  gave  it 
a  peculiar  aptness  to  illustrate  the  truth  which  he  had  in  hand.  Its  heat, 
its  fiery  vigour,  the  fact  that  only  through  being  bruised  it  gives  out  its 
best  virtues,  and  all  this  under  so  insignificant  an  appearance,  and  in  so 
small  a  compass,  may  well  have  moved  him  to  select  this  image  under 
which  to  set  forth  the  destinies  of  the  word  of  the  kingdom, — of  the  doc- 
trine of  a  crucified  Redeemer,  which,  though  to  the  Greeks  foolishness, 
and  to  the  Jews  a  stumbling-block,  should  prove  to  them  that  believed 
"the  power  of  God  unto  salvation.''* 

Yet  is  it  not  Christ's  doctrine  merely,  nor  yet  even  the  Church  which  he 
planted  upon  earth,  that  is  signified  by  this  grain  of  mustard  seed.  He  is 
himself  the  grain  of  mustard  seed."!"  For  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  or  the 
Church,  was  originally  enclosed  in  him,  and  from  him  unfolded  itself,  hav- 
ing as  much  oneness  of  life  with  him  as  the  tree  with  the  seed  in  which  it 
was  originally  shut  up,  and  out  of  which  it  grew.  He  is  at  once  the  sower 
and  the  seed  sown  :  for  by  a  free  act  of  his  own  will,  he  gave  himself  to  that 
death,  whereby  he  became  the  author  of  life  unto  many  ;:}:  as  he  himself 
had  said,  "  Except  a  corn  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground  and  die,  it  abideth 
alone  ;  but  if  it  die,  it  bringeth  forth  much  fruit."  (John  xii.  24.) 
And  the  field  in  which  he  sowed  this  seed  was  the  world  ; — "  hisjield," 

tern  nostram  cum  quodam  fletu  ac  moerore  consequimur.  Moreover,  thnt  its  active 
energj',  which  in  these  quotations  is  noted,  will  make  it  as  apt  an  emblem  of  the  good 
as  the  ill ;  and  as  such  it  was  used,  according  to  Eastern  tradition,  by  Alexander  the 
Great;  for  when  Darius  sent  him  a  barrel  full  of  sesame,  to  acquaint  him  with  the 
number  of  his  soldiers,  he  sent  a  bag  full  of  mustard  seed  in  return,  to  indicate  the 
active,  fiery,  biting  courage  of  his.     (D'Hekbelot,  Biblioth.  Orient.,  s.  v.  Escander.) 

*  Thus  the  author  of  a  Sermon  which  as  been  attributed  to  Augustine  {Serm.  87, 
Appendix)  and  to  Ambrose  :  Sicut  enim  granum  sinapis  prima  fronte  speciei  suae  est 
parvum,  vile,  despectum,  non  saporem  prsestans,  non  odorem  circumferens,  non  indi- 
cans  suavitatem  :  at  ubi  teri  caeperit,  statim  odorem  suum  fundit,  acrimoniam  exhibet, 
cibum  ilammei  saporis  exhalat,  et  tanto  fervoris  calore  succendiiur,  ut  mirum  sit  in  tarn 
frivolis  [granis]  tantum  ignem  fuisse  conclusum,  .  .  .  ita  ergo  et  fides  Christiana 
prima  fronte  videtur  esse  parva,  vilis,  et  tenuis,  non  potentiam  suam  ostendens,  non 
superbiam  praeferens,  non  gratiam  subministrans.  There  is  great  fitness  and  beau- 
ty in  the  occasion  upon  which  this  sermon  was  preached,  namely,  the  martyrdom  of 
St.  Laurentius,  the  manner  of  whose  death  is  well  known. — There  is  much  also  that  is 
instructive,  with  somewhat  merely  fanciful,  in  the  remarks  which  Ambrose  (Exp.  in 
Luc.  1.  7,  c.  176-186)  makes  on  this  parable. 

t  See  a  fragment  of  Irenaeus  (p.  347,  Bened.  ed.,)  who  also  notes  how  the  mustard 
seed  was  selected  for  its  fiery  and  austere  qualities  (rd  nvppaKig  Kal  avarripov).  So  Ter- 
TULLiAN,  Adv.  Marc,  1.  4,  c.  30. 

X  Early  Christian  art  had  a  true  insight  into  this.  Didron,  (Iconographie  Chreti- 
enne,  p.  208,)  describes  this  as  a  frequent  symbol :  Le  Christ  dans  un  tombeau :  de 
sa  bouche  sort  un  arbre,  sur  les  branches  duquel  sent  les  apotres. 

7 


90  THE  MUSTARD  SEED. 

or,  as  St.  Luke  expresses  it,  (xiii.  19,)  "  his  garden  ;"  for  the  world  was 
made  by  him,  and  when  he  came  unto  it,  "  he  came  unto  his  own." 

This  seed  when  cast  into  the  ground  is  "  the  least  of  all  seeds," — 
words  which  have  often  perplexed  interpreters,  as  there  are  many  seeds, 
as  of  poppy  or  rue,  that  are  smaller ;  yet  difficulties  of  this  kind  are  not 
worth  making ; — it  is  sufficient  to  know  that — Small  as  a  grain  of  mus- 
tard-seed, was  a  proverbial  expression  among  the  Jews  *  for  something 
exceedingly  minute.  (See  Luke  xvii.  6.)  The  Lord,  in  his  popular 
teaching,  adhered  to  the  popular  language. — To  pass  on  then  to  the 
thinof  signified  :  What,  to  the  eye  of  flesh,  could  be  less  magnificent, 
what  could  have  less  of  promise  than  the  commencements  of  the  king- 
dom of  God  in  the  person  of  the  Son  of  man  ?  He  grew  up  in  a  distant 
and  despised  province ;  till  his  thirtieth  year,  did  not  emerge  from  the 
bosom  of  his  family, — then  taught  for  two  or  three  years  in  the  neigh- 
bourincr  towns  and  villages,  and  occasionally  at  Jerusalem  ;  made  a  few 
converts,  chiefly  among  the  poor  and  unlearned ;  and  then,  falling  into 
the  hands  of  his  enemies,  without  an  attempt  on  his  own  part  or  his  fol- 
lowers to  release  him,  died  the  shameful  death  of  the  cross :  such,  and 
so  slight,  was  the  commencement  of  the  universal  kingdom  of  God.  For 
in  this  the  kingdom  of  God  differs  from  the  great  schemes  of  this  world  ; 
— ^these  last  have  a  proud  beginning,  a  shameful  and  a  miserable  end — 
towers  of  Babel,  which  at  first  threaten  to  be  as  high  as  heaven,  but  end 
in  being  a  deserted  and  'formless  heap  of  slime  and  bricks  ;  but  the  works 
of  God,  and  most  of  all  his  great  work,  his  Church,  have  a  slight  and 
unobserved  beginning,  with  gradual  increase  and  a  glorious  consumma- 
tion. So  is  it  with  his  kingdom  in  the  world  ;  so  is  it  with  his  kingdom 
in  every  single  heart.  The  word  of  Christ  falls  there  too,  like  a 
slight  mustard  seed,  promising  little,  but  issuing,  if  allowed  to  grow,  in 
{Treat  and  marvellous  results.^     That  which  was  the  smallest  of  all 

*  So  also  in  the  Coran  {Sur.  31) :  Oh  my  son,  verily  every  matter,  whether  good 
or  bad,  though  it  be  of  the  weight  of  a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  and  he  hidden  in  a  rock, 
or  in  the  heavens,  or  in  the  eafth,  God  will  bring  the  same  to  light. 

t  Jerome,  {Comm.  in  Matth.  in  loc.)  has  a  striking  passage  noting  the  difference 
in  this  respect,  between  the  Gospel  and  every  system  of  human  philosophy  :  the  last 
promising  much  and  performing  little,  the  other  promising  little  and  performing  much  : 
Proedicatio  Evangelii  minima  est  omnibus  disciplinis.  Ad  priniam  quippe  doctrinara, 
fidem  non  habet  veritatis,  hominem  Deum,  Deum  mortuum,  et  scandalum  crucis  prae- 
dicans.  Confer  hujuscemodi  doctrinam  dogmatibus  Philosophorum,  et  libris  eorum, 
splcndori  eloquentiae,  et  composiiioni  sermonum,  et  videbis  quanto  minor  sit  caeteris 
seminibus  sementis  Evangelii.  Sed  ilia  cum  creverit,  nihil  mordax,  nihil  vividum, 
nihil  vitale  demonstrat,  sed  totum  flaccidum,marcidumque,  et  moUitum  ebullit  in  olera 
et  in  herbas  quae  cit6  arescunt  et  corruunt.  Haec  autem  praedicatio  quae  parva  vide- 
batur  in  principio,  cum  vel  in  anima  credentis,  vel  in  toto  mundo  sata,  fuerit,  non 
«x8urgit  in  olera,  sed  crescit  in  arborem. 


THE  MUSTARD  SEED.  91 

seeds,*  "  when  it  is  grown,  it  is  the  greatest  among  herbs,  and  becometh  a  tree, 
so  that  the  birds  of  the  air  come  and  lodge  in  the  branches  thereof."  It  is 
well  known  that  in  hot  countries,  as  in  Judsea,  the  mustard-tree  attains 
a  size  which  it  is  never  known  to  reach  in  our  colder  latitudes,  some- 
times so  great  as  to  allow  a  man  to  climb  up  into  its  branches,  though 
this,  indeed,  is  mentioned  as  a  remarkable  thing  ;"j"  or  to  ride  on  horse- 
back under  them,  as  a  traveller  in  Chili  mentions  that  he  has  done. 
And,  on  this  passage,  Maldonatus  relates,  that  even  in  Spain  he  has 
himself  seen  great  ovens  heated  with  its  branches  :  he  mentions  as  well 
that  birds  are  exceedingly  partial  to  the  seed,  so  that  when  it  is  advanc- 
ing to  ripeness,  he  has  often  seen  them  lighting  in  very  great  numbers 
on  its  boughs,  which,  however,  were  strong  enough  to  sustain  the  weight 
without  being  broken.  This  fact  of  the  fondness  of  birds  for  the  seeds,' 
and  the  manner  in  which,  therefore,  they  congregated  in  the  branches, 
was  probably  familiar  to  our  Lord's  hearers  also.  They,  too,  had  be- 
held them  lodging  in  the  branches  of  the  tree,  whose  seed  thus  served 
them  for  meat,  so  that  there  must  have  been  a  singular  liveliness  in  the 
image  which  the  parable  presented  to  their  minds. 

Neither  need  we  suppose  this  last  circumstance  introduced  merely 
for  the  purpose  of  completing  the  picture,  and  presenting  it  in  a  more 
lively  manner  to  the  eye  ;  but  rather,  in  the  birds  flocking  to  the  boughs 
of  the  mustard-tree  when  it  had  grown  great,  and  there  finding  shelter 
and  food,  (Ezek.  xvii.  23,  "  under  it  shall  dwell  all  fowl  of  every  wing,") 
we  are  to  recognize  a  prophecy  of  the  refuge  and  defence  that  should  be 
for  all  men  in  the  Church :  how  that  multitudes  should  thither  make 
their  resort,  finding  their  protection  from  worldly  oppression,  as  well  as 
the  satisfaction  for  all  the  needs  and  wants  of  their  souls  ;:}:  and  proving 
true  the  words  of  the  son  of  Sirach,  (xiv.   20,  26,  27,)  "  Blessed  is  the 

*  Kuinoel's  is  an  inaccurate  remark,  that  here  inKporcpov  is  a  comparative  for  a 
superlative,  since  it  is  the  following  ttuvtiov  which  justifies  and  explains  its  use  (see 
Mark  iv.  32 ;  John  x.  29  ;  Ephes.  iii.  8)  ;  if  I  say  that  a  man  is  better  than  all  men, 
I  say,  indeed,  that  he  is  the  best ;  but  I  do  not  use  a  comparative  for  a  superlative. 
So  neither  Virgil ;  Scelere  ante  alios  immanior  omnes  ;  nor  the  author  of  the  old  Latin 
epitaph,  in  which  these  words  occur:  Omnium  feminarum  sanction.  This  would  not 
be  worth  observing,  save  as  an  example  of  the  loose  attribution  to  the  New  Testament, 
of  ungrammatical  forms,  which  is  a  most  serious  hindrance  to  all  accurate  interpreta- 
tion.    (See  Winer's  Grammatik,  p.  221.) 

t  LiGHTFooT,  Hor.  Heb.,  in  loc. 

i  Augustine  (Serm.  44,  c.  2) :  Crevit  Ecclesia,  crediderunt  gentes,  victi  sunt  ter- 
rae  principes  sub  nomine  Christi,  ut  essent  victores  in  orbe  terrarum.  Persequebantur 
ante  Christianos  pro  idolis,  persequuntur  idola  propter  Christum.  Omnes  confugiunt 
ad  auxilium  Ecclesiae,  in  omni  pressura,  in  omni  tribulatione  sua.  Crevit  illud  granum 
sinapis,  veniunt  volatilia  coeli,  superbi  saecuh,  et  acquiescunt  sub  ramis  ejus. 


92  THE  LEAVEN. 

man  that  doth  meditate  good  things  in  Wisdom.  .  .  .  He  shall  set  his 
children  under  her  shelter,  and  shall  lodge  under  her  branches  ;  by  her 
he  shall  be  covered  from  heat,  and  in  her  glory  shall  he  dwell."  Theo- 
phylact  concludes  his  exposition  of  the  parable  with  this  practical  appli- 
cation :  "  And  be  thou  also  such  a  grain  of  mustard, — small,  indeed,  in 
appearance,  for  it  becomes  thee  not  to  make  a  spectacle  of  thy  virtue, 
but  fervent,  and  zealous,  and  energic,  and  armed  to  reprove." 


PARABLE  IV. 


THE    LEAVEN. 

Matthew  xiii.  33  ;  Luke,  xiii.  20,  2L 

This  parable  relates  also  to  the  marvellous  increase  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  ;  but  while  the  last  set  forth  its  outward  visible  manifestation,  this 
declares  its  hidden  mysterious  working  ;  and  not  merely  its  development 
from  within  itself,  but  its  influence  on  the  world  which  it  touches  upon 
all  sides.  The  mustard  seed  does  not  for  some  while  attract  observa- 
tion, nor,  till  it  has  grown  to  a  considerable  size,  do  the  birds  of  the  air 
light  upon  its  branches  ;  but  the  active  working  of  the  leaven  has  been 
from  the  very  beginning,  from  the  moment  that  it  was  hidden  in  the 
lump.  It  might  indeed  be  said  against  this  or  any  other  scheme  which 
should  expound  the  leaven  in  a  favourable  sense,  that  it  is  most  fre- 
quently used  in  the  Scripture  as  the  symbol  of  something  evil.  (1  Cor. 
v.  7  ;  Luke  xii.  1  ;  Gal.  v.  9.)  Tliis  is  undoubtedly  true,  and  being 
this,  it  was  forbidden,  in  the  offerings  under  the  Law,  (Exod.  xiii.  3j 
Lev.  ii.  11  ;  Amosiv.  5,)  though  not  without  an  exception.  (Lev.  xxiii. 
17.)  The  strict  command  to  the  people,  that  they  should  carefully  put 
away  every  particle  of  leaven  out  of  their  houses,  during  the  Passover 
week,  rests  on  this  view  of  it  as  evil :  they  were  thus  reminded  that  they 
needed  to  put  away  from  their  hearts  all  workings  of  malice  and  wick- 
edness, if  they  would  rightly  keep  the  spiritual  feast.*    When  leaven  is 

♦  See  our  Collect  for  the  First  Sunday  after  Easter.— The  Jews  termed  the  fig- 
mentum  malum,  that  in  man  which  lusteth  against  the  spirit,  and  hinders  him  from 
doing  the  things  that  he  would,  the  leaven  in  the  lump,  and  the  reason  is  given  in 
the  book  Sohar:  Prava  concupiscentia  vocatur  fermentum,  quia  parum  ejus  cor  per- 
vadit,  et  in  tantum  exturgescit,  ut  findatur  pectus.     (See  Schoettgen's  Hor.  Heb., 


THE  LEAVEN.  93 

thus  used  in  an  evil  sense,  its  tendencies  to  make  sour  and  to  corrupt  are 
those  which  come  most  prominently  forward.  Yet,  because  such  is  its 
most  frequent  use  in  Scripture,  there  needs  not,  therefore,  to  interpret 
the  parable,  as  Gurtler,*  Teelman,-}-  and  also  some  little  bands  of  mo- 
dern separatists:}:  (whose  motive,  of  course,  is  obvious)  have  done,  as 
though  it  were  a  prophecy  of  the  heresies  and  corruptions,  which  should 
mingle  with  and  adulterate  the  pure  doctrine  of  the  Gospel, — as  though 
it  were,  in  fact,  a  prophecy  of  the  workings  of  the  future  mystery  of  in- 
iquity.  These  expositors  make  the  Woman  to  be  the  apostate  church, 
which,  with  its  ministers,  they  observe  is  often  represented  under  this 
image.  (Prov.  ix.  13;  Rev.  xvii.  1;  Zech.  v.  7-11.)  The  last  of 
these  passages  Teelman  asserts  to  be  an  exact  parallel  to  the  parable 
before  us.  If  this  interpretation  were  the  true  one, — if  it  could  be 
said  that  at  any  time  the  whole  Church  was  thus  penetrated  through 
and  through  with  the  leaven  of  false  doctrine,  the  gates  of  hell 
would,  indeed,  have  prevailed  against  it ;  and  from  whence  it  should 
ever  have  become  unleavened  again,  it  is  difficult  to  understand. 

But  the  unquestionable  fact,  that  leaven  is,  in  Scripture,  most  com- 
monly the  type  of  something  false  and  corrupting,  need  not  drive  us 
into  any  such  embarrassment.  It  was  not,  therefore,  the  less  free  to 
use  it  in  a  good  sense.  In  those  other  passages,  its  puffing  up,  disturb- 
ing, souring  properties,  were   the  prominent  points  of  comparison ;  in 


V.  1,  p.  597.)  The  Romans  had  the  same  dislike  to  the  use  of  leaven  in  sacred 
things :  Farinam  fermento  imbutam  attingere  flamini  Diali  fas  non  est.  (Gell.  x.  15, 
19.)  Plutarch  (Quast.  Rom.  109,)  gives  no  doubt  the  true  explanation  :  "  The  leav- 
en itself  is  born  from  corruption,  and  corrupts  the  mass  with  which  it  is  mingled." 
Thus  it  comes  to  pass  that  lipToi  KaOapol  is  used  us  =  a^vnot.  So  Jerome  (Ep.  31) 
gives  the  reason  why  honey  was  forbidden  in  the  Levitical  offerings  (Lev.  ii.  11) : 
Apud  Deum  enim  nihil  voluptuosum,  nihil  tantum  suave  placet ;  nisi  quod  in  se  habet 
mordacis  aliquid  veritatis.  These  omissions  had  doubtless  the  same  symbolical  mean- 
ing, as  the  casting  away  of  the  gall  among  the  Romans  in  the  victims  offered  to  the 
nuptial  Juno. — It  was  the  feehng  of  the  unsuitableness  of  leaven  in  sacris  which,  in 
part,  caused  the  Latin  Church  to  contend  so  earnestly  against  the  use  of  fermented 
bread  in  the  Eucharist,  calling  those  who  used  it,  Fermentaril,  though  there  was  an 
historical  interest  also  mingling  in  the  question.  (See  Augusti,  Handh.  d.  Christl. 
Archaol.yV.  2,  p.  662.) 

*  Syst.  Theol.  Prophet.,  p.  590. 

t  Comm.  in  Luc.  16,  p.  59,  seq. — Vitringa  gives,  with  great  impartiality,  two 
entirely  independent  expositions  of  the  Parable,  taking  first  the  leaven  in  a  good,  then 
in  an  evil  sense,  but  decides  absolutely  for  neither. 

I  Brief  Exposition  of  Matthew  xiii.,  by  J.  N.  Darby,  1845,  p.  40.  He  makes 
in  the  same  way  the  parable  of  the  mustard  seed  to  be  a  prophecy  of  the  upgrowth  of 
a  proud  world-hierarchy. 


94  THE  LEAVEN. 

the  present,  its  warmth,*  its  penetrative  energy,  the  power  which  a  lit- 
tie  of  it  has  to  lend  its  savor  and  its  virtue  to  much  wherewith  it  comes 
in  contact.  The  great  features  of  the  figurative  language  of  Scripture 
remain  no  doubt  fixed  and  unalterable ;  but  it  is  not  thus  stereotyped  in 
its  minor  details,  so  that  one  figure  needs  always  to  stand  for  one  and 
the  same  thing.  The  devil  is  "  a  roaring  lion,  seeking  whom  he  may 
devour;"  (1  Pet.  v.  8  ;)  yet  this  does  not  hinder  the  same  title  from 
being  applied  to  Christ,  "  the  Lion  of  the  tribe  of  Judah  ;"  (Rev.  v.  5  ;) 
only  there  the  subtlety  and  fierceness  of  the  animal  formed  the  point  of 
comparison,  here  the  nobility  and  kingliness  and  conquering  strength. f 
Cyril :(:  then  certainly  goes  too  far,  and  could  scarcely  have  had  this 
parable  in  his  mind,  when  he  says :  "  Leaven,  in  the  inspired  writings, 
is  always  taken  as  the  type  of  naughtiness  and  sin."  Ignatius  shows 
rather  by  his  own  application  of  the  image,  how  it  may  be  freely  used, 
now  in  a  good,  now  in  a  bad  sense ;  for  warning  against  Judaizing  prac- 
tices, he  writes:  "  Lay  aside  the  evil  leaven  which  has  grown  old  and 
maketh  sour,  and  be  transmuted  into  the  new  leaven,  which  is  Christ 
Jesus. "§  Nor  is  it  to  be  forgotten  that  if,  on  one  side,  the  effects  of  lea- 
ven on  meal  present  an  analogy  to  something  evil  in  the  spiritual  world, 
they  do  also  on  the  other,  to  something  good,  as  it  is  universally  agreed 
that  its  effects  on  bread  are  to  render  it  more  tasteful,  lighter,  and  more 
nourishing,  and  generally  more  wholesome. 

There  is  no  need,  then,  to  take  the  parable  in  other  than  its  obvious 
sense,  that  it  is  concerning  the  diffusion,  and  not  the  corruptions,  of  the 
Gospel ;  by  the  leaven  we  are  to  understand  the  word  of  the  kingdom, 
which  Word,  in  its  highest  sense,  Christ  himself  was.  As  the  mustard- 
seed,  out  of  which  a  mighty  tree  was  to  grow,  was  the  least  of  all  seeds, 
so  the  leaven  is  also  something  apparently  of  slight  account,  and  yet,  at 
the  same  time,  mighty  in  operation.  Thus,  too,  of  Christ  it  was  said, 
"  He  hath  no  form  nor  comeliness,  and  when  we  shall  see  him  there  is 
no  beauty  that  we  should  desire  him;"  but  then  presently  again,  "  By 
his  knowledge  shall  my  righteous  Servant  justify  many,  ...  and  he 
shall  divide  the  spoil  with  the  strong;"  (Isai.  liii.  2,  11,  12  ;)  and  when 

*  Zu/.»;  from  fco),  as  fermentum  (=  fervimentum)  from  ferveo  :  leaven,  in  French 
levain.from  levare,  to  lift  up. 

t  See  Augustine  {Serm.  73,  c.  2) :  Quod  enim  tam  distat  ab  invicem,  quam 
Christus  et  Diabolua?  Tamen  leo  et  Cliristus  est  appeliatus,  et  Diabolus.  .  .  .  lUe 
leo,  propter  fortitudinem  :  ille  leo,  propter  feritatem.  Ille  leo  ad  vincendum  :  ille  leo, 
ad  nocendum.     Cf  Serm.  32,  c.  6. 

\  Horn,  raschal,  19. 

§  AdMagnes.,  10.  Cf.  Gregory  Naz.,  (Orat.  36,  c.  90,)  who  says  that  Christ  by 
his  Incarnation  sanctified  men,  uyaTrtp  ^v/iri  ytvojitvoi  tw  iravri  <pvpauaTi,  xaX  nous  Iovtod  ivdaai. 


THE  LEAVEN.  96 

he  had  communicated  of  his  life  and  spirit  to  his  apostles,  they  too,  in 
their  turn,  poor  and  mean  and  unlearned  as  they  were,  became  the  salt 
of  the  earth,  the  leaven  of  the  world.  For,  in  Chrysostom's  words, 
"  that  which  is  once  leavened  becomes  leaven  to  the  rest ;  since  as  the 
spark  when  it  takes  hold  of  wood,  makes  that  which  is  already  kindled 
to  transmit  the  flame,  and  so  seizes  still  upon  more,  thus  it  is  also  with 
the  preaching  of  the  word."* 

Is  it  only  a  part  of  the  suitable  machinery  of  the  parable,  that  the 
act  of  kneading  being  proper  to  women,  it  should  be  here  said,  that  it 
was  "  a  woman"  who  took  the  leaven,  and  hid  it  in  the  three  measures 
of  meal  ?  or  may  we  look  for  something  more  in  it  than  this  ?  A  com- 
parison with  Luke  xv.  8,  the  woman  who  had  lost  and  found  her  piece 
of  money,  may  suggest  that  the  divine  Wisdom,  the  Holy  Spirit,  which 
is  the  sanctifying  power  in  humanity,  (and  it  is  of  that  sanctifying  that 
the  word  is  here,)  may  be  meant.  But  if  it  be  asked,  why  as  a  woman, 
to  this  it  may  be  replied  that  the  organ  of  the  Spirit's  working  is  the 
Church,  which  evidently  would  be  most  fitly  represented  under  this 
image.  In  and  through  the  Church  the  Spirit's  work  proceeds  :  only 
as  he  dwells  in  the  Church,  (Rev.  xxii.  7,)  is  it  able  to  mingle  a  nobler 
element  in  the  mass  of  humanity,  to  leaven  the  world. — So  again,  why 
should  three  measures  of  meal  be  mentioned  ?  It  may  perhaps  be  suf- 
ficiently answered.  Because  it  was  just  so  much  as  at  one  time  would 
be  commonly  mixed.  (Gen.  xviii.  6  ;  Judg.  vi.  19  ;  1  Sam.  i.  24.)'j" 
Yet  it  may  be  that  we  should  attach  a  further  significance  to  this  num- 
ber three.  Some  perceive  in  it  allusion  to  the  spread  of  the  Gospel 
through  the  three  parts  then  known  of  the  world :  others  again,  as  Au- 
gustine, to  the  ultimate  leavening  of  the  whole  human  race,  derived  from 
the  three  sons  of  Noah  ;  which  is  nearly  the  same  thing.  And  those 
who,  like  Jerome  and  Ambrose,  find  in  it  a  pledge  of  the  sanctification 
of  spirit,  soul,  and  body,  are  not  upon  a  different  track,  if  indeed,  as  has 
not  been  ill  suggested,  Shem,  Japhet,  and  Ham,  do  indeed  answer  to 
these  three  elements,  spirit,  soul,  and  body,  which  together  make  up  the 
man — the  one  or  other  element  coming  into  predominance  in  the  de- 
scendants severally  of  the  three. 

But  leaving  this,  we  may  observe  how  the  leaven  is  at  once  different 
from,  and  yet  acting  upon,  the  lump  ;  for  the  woman  took  it  from  else- 
where  to  mingle  it  therein  :  and  even  such  is  the  Gospel,  a  kingdom 
not  of  this  world,  (John  xviii.  36,)  not  the  unfolding  of  any  powers  which 

*  InMatth.,  Horn.  46  ;  see  also  Con.  Ignaviam,  Horn.  3.2.  So  Cajetan  :  Christi 
discipuli,  prima  regai  caelorum  membra,  spiritu  penetriinmt  corda  hominum,  crudaque 
ac  acerba  ad  maturitatem  ac  saporem  caelestis  vitae  promoverunt. 

t  In  the  two  last  places,  the  Septuagint  has  rpU  ^irpa. 


96  THE  LEAVEN. 

already  existed  in  the  world, — a  kingdom  not  rising  as  those  other  king- 
doms "  out  of  the  earth,"  (Dan.  vii.  17,)  but  a  new  power  brought  into 
the  world  from  above,  not  a  philosophy,  but  a  Revelation.  The  Gospel 
of  Christ  was  a  new  and  quickening  power  cast  in  the  midst  of  an  old 
and  dying  world,  a  centre  of  life  round  which  all  the  energies  which 
Survived,  and  all  which  itself  should  awaken,  might  form  and  gather  ; — 
by  the  help  of  which  the  world  might  renew  its  youth.* — And  it  is  ob- 
servable, that  this  leaven  is  said  not  merely  to  have  been  mingled  with, 
but  hidden  in  the  mass,  on  which  its  influence  was  to  be  exerted.  The 
true  renovation,  that  which  God  effects,  is  ever  thus  fi'om  the  inward  to 
the  outward  ;  it  begins  in  the  invisible  spiritual  world,  though  it  ends  not 
there  ;  for  there  beginning,  it  yet  fails  not  to  bring  about,  in  good  time, 
a  mighty  change  also  in  the  outward  and  visible  world.  This  was  won- 
derfully exemplified  in  the  early  history  of  Christianity.  The  leaven  was 
effectually  hidden.  A  remarkable  evidence  of  this  is  the  entire  ignorance 
which  heathen  writers  betray  of  all  that  was  going  forward  a  little  below 
the  surface  of  society, — the  manner  in  which  they  overlooked  the  mighty 
change  which  was  preparing,  and  this  not  merely  at  the  first,  when  the 
mustard-tree  might  well  escape  notice,  but,  with  slight  exceptions,  even 
up  to  the  very  moment  when  the  triumph  of  Christianity  was  at  hand. 
The  leaven  was  hidden,  yet,  by  degrees,  it  made  itself  felt,  till  at  length 
the  whole  Roman  world  was,  more  or  less,  leavened  by  it.  Nor  must  we 
forget,  that  the  mere  external  conversion  of  that  whole  world  gives  us  a 
very  inadequate  measure  of  the  work  which  had  to  be  done  :  besides  this, 
there  was  the  eradication  of  the  innumerable  heathen  practices  and  cus- 
toms and  feelings  which  had  enwoven  and  entwined  their  fibres  round 
the  very  heart  of  society,  a  work  which  lagged  very  considerably  behind 
the  other,  and  which,  in  fact,  was  never  thoroughly  accomplished,  till  the 
whole  structure  of  Roman  society  had  gone  to  pieces,  and  the  new  Teu- 
tonic framework  had  been  erected  in  its  room. 

But  while  much  has  thus  been  effected,  while  the  leavening  of  the 
* 

*  Augustine,  in  whose  time  the  fading  away  of  ail  the  glory  of  the  ancient  world 
wa8  daily  becoming  more  apparent,  (mundus  tanta  rerum  labe  contritus,  ut  etiam 
speciem  seductionis  amlseril,)  delighted  to  contemplate  and  to  present  the  coming  of 
Christ  under  this  aspect.  Thus  Serm.  81  ;  Parum  tibi  praestitit  Deus,  quia  in  senec- 
tute  mundi  misit  tibi  Christum,  ut  tunc  te  reficiat,  quando  omnia  deficiunt  1  .  .  .  Venit 
ciim  omnia  veterascerent,  et  novum  te  fecit.  Res  facta,  res  condita,  res  peritura 
jam  vergebat  in  occasam.  Necesse  erat  ut  abundaret  laboribus  ;  venit  ille,  et  conso- 
lari  te  inter  labores,  et  promittere  tibi  in  sempiternum  quietem.  Noli  adhaerere  velle 
seni  mundo.et  nolle  juvenescere  in  Christo,qui  tibi  dicit  ;  Perit  mundus,  senescit  mun- 
dus, deficit  mundus,  laborat  aiihelitu  senectulis.  Noli  timere,  renovabitur  juventus  tua 
sicut  aquils. 


THE  LEAVEN.  97 

mass  has  never  ceased  to  go  forward,  yet  the  promise  of  the  parable  has 
hitherto  been  realized  only  in  a  very  imperfect  measure,  and  we  cannot 
consider  these  words  "  tili  the  whole  is  leavened"  as  less  than  a  pro- 
phecy of  a  final  complete  triumph  of  Christianity  ;  that  it  will  diffuse 
itself  through  all  nations,  and  purify  and  ennoble  all  life.  And  we  may 
also  fairly  see  in  these  words  a  promise  and  an  assurance  that  the  word 
of  life,  received  into  any  single  heart,  shall  not  there  cease  its  effectual 
working,  till  it  has  brought  the  whole  man  in  obedience  to  it,  sanctifying 
him  wholly,  so  that  he  shall  be  altogether  a  new  creation  in  Christ 
Jesus.*  It  shall  claim  every  region  of  man's  being  as  its  own,  and 
make  itself  felt  in  all.  In  fact,  the  parable  does  nothing  less  than  set 
forth  to  us  the  mystery  of  regeneration,  both  in  its  first  act,  which  can 
be  but  once,  as  the  leaven  is  but  once  hidden  ;  and  also  in  the  conse- 
quent renewal  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  which,  as  the  ulterior  working  of  the 
leaven,  is  continual  and  progi'essive.  This  side  of  the  truth  is  that  ex- 
clusively brought  out  by  Hammond,  who  thus  paraphrases  our  Lord's 
words  :  "  The  Gospel  hath  such  a  secret  invisible  influence  on  the  hearts 
of  men,  to  change  them  and  affect  them,  and  all  the  actions  that  flow 
from  them,  that  it  is  fitly  resembled  to  leaven,  so  mixed  thoroughly  with 
the  whole,  that  although  it  appeareth  not  in  any  part  of  it  visibly,  yet 
every  part  hath  a  tincture  from  it."  We  may  fitly  conclude,  in  the 
words  of  St.  Ambrose  :  "  May  the  Holy  Church,  which  is  figured  under 
the  type  of  this  woman  in  the  Gospel,  whose  meal  are  we,  hide  the  Lord 
Jesus  in  the  innermost  places  of  our  hearts,  till  the  warmth  of  the 
Divine  wisdom  penetrate  into  the  most  secret  recesses  of  our  souls."f 

*  Corn,  a  Lapide  quotes  from  an  earlier  commentator :  Dicit  autem,  Donee  fer- 
mentatem  est  totum,  quia  charitas  in  mente  nostra  recondita  eo  usque  crescere  debet 
ut  totani  mentem  in  sui  perfectionem  commutet,  quod  hie  quidem  inchoatur,  in  future 
vero  perficitur. 

t  Exp.  in  Luc,  1.  7,  c.  187. — Clemens  of  Alexandria  (p.  694,  Potter's  ed.)  gives 
an  admirable  exposition  of  the  parable,  and  in  very  few  words.  The  kingdom  of 
heaven,  he  says,  is  likened  to  leaven,  on  fj  iVj^iJj  tov  Adyov  cvvTOjios  ovaa  koi  Jwar/j, 
TtavTa  TOV  Kara&t^ajievov  kol  ivTOi  iaVTOv  KTrjaa^tvov  aiirnv,  iTnKCKpv^jxtvwi  re  Koi  dipavois  ttjOoj 
iavrfiv  ?Axt(,  Kai  to  ttSv  avTOv  (rioTrifia  ti's  tvorrira  avvdyn. 


98  THE  HID  TREASURE. 


PARABLE  V. 


THE   HID   TREASURE. 

Matthew  xiii.  44. 

The  kingdom  of  God  is  not  merely  a  general,  it  is  also  an  individual, 
thing  ;  it  is  not  merely  a  tree  overshadowing  the  earth,  leaven  leavening 
the  world,  but  each  man  must  have  it  for  himself,  and  make  it  his  own 
by  a  distinct  act  of  his  own  will.  He  cannot  be  a  Christian  without 
knowing  it.  He  may  come  under  the  shadow  of  this  great  tree,  and 
partake  of  many  blessings  of  its  shelter.  He  may  dwell  in  a  Christen- 
dom which  has  been  leavened,  and  so  in  a  manner  himself  share  in  the 
universal  leavening.  But  more  than  this  is  needed,  and  more  than  this 
in  every  elect  soul  will  find  place.  There  will  be  a  personal  appropri- 
ation  of  the  benefit,  and  we  have  the  history  of  this  in  these  two  para- 
bles *  which  follow.  They  were  spoken,  not  to  the  multitude,  not  to 
those  "  without," — but  within  the  house,  and  to  the  more  immediate 
disciples.  These  are  addressed  as  having  found  the  hid  treasure  f — the 
pearl  of  price ;  and  are  now  warned  of  the  surpassing  worth  of  these, 
and  that,  for  their  sakes,  all  things  are  to  be  joyfully  renounced.  The 
second  parable  does  not  merely  repeat  what  the  first  has  said,  but  re- 
peats it  with  a  difference.  The  two  are  each  the  complement  of  the 
other :  so  that  under  one  or  other,  as  finders  either  of  the  pearl  or  hid 
treasure,  may  be  ranged  all  who  become  partakers  of  the  rich  treasures 
of  the  Gospel  of  Christ.  For  these,  it  may  be,  are  persons  who  feel  that 
there  must  be  some  absolute  good  for  man,  in  the  possession  of  which  he 
shall  be  blessed,  and  find  the  satisfaction  of  all  his  longings,  and  who  are, 

*  Origen  (Comm.  in  Matth.)  observes  that  these  would  more  fitly  be  called  simili- 
tudes (ojiouiaui)  than  parables,  which  name,  he  says,  is  not  given  to  them  in  the  Scrip- 
ture :  yet  see  ver.  53. — For  a  series  of  these  briefer  parables  as  in  use  among  the  Jews, 
see  Schoettgen's  Hor.  Heh.,  v.  1,  pp.  83-85. 

t  9^(Tovp(5f,  i.  e.  avvayoiyh  ■)(_()rijxa.Twv  KCKpvjtjitvr],  as  an  old  Lexicon  explains  it. 
Neither  of  the  derivations  greatly  commend  themselves ;  not  TiQr]jn  and  avpov  =  au- 
rum,  the  receptacle  of  gold,  since  the  word  anpov  seems  not  so  old  as  Oijuaupdj  itself, 
and  that  from  riOnit'  di  aipiov,  that  put  by  for  to-morrow,  is  artificial. — The  Jurisconsult 
Paulus  gives  its  legal  definition,  Thesaurus  est  tarn  vetus  depositio  pecuniiE,  ut  ejus  non 
exstet  memoria,  et  Jam  dominum  non  habeat. 


THE  HID. TREASURE,  99 

therefore,  seeking  everywhere  and  inquiring  for  this  good.  Such  are 
likened  to  the  merchant  that  has  distinctly  set  before  himself  the  purpose 
of  seeking  goodly  pearls.  These  are  the  fewest  in  number,  but  at  the 
same  time,  perhaps,  the  noblest  converts  to  the  truth.  Again,  there  are 
others,  who  do  not  discover  that  there  is  an  aim  and  a  purpose  for  man's 
life, — that  there  is  a  truth  for  him  at  all,  until  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus, 
is  revealed  to  them.  Such  are  likened  to  the  finder  of  the  hid  treasure, 
who  stumbled  upon  it  unawares,  neither  expecting  nor  looking  for  it. 
While  the  others  knew  that  there  was  a  good,  and  were  looking  for  it,  the 
discovery  of  the  good  itself  is  the  first  thing  that  reveals  to  these  that  there 
is  such  at  all  ;  whose  joy,  therefore,  as  greater, — being  the  joy  at  the 
discovery  of  an  unlooked-for  treasure, — is  expressed  ;  that  of  the  other, 
not.  Thus  Hammond,  bringing  out  this  distinction,  paraphrases  the  two 
parables  thus  :  "  The  Gospel  being  by  some  not  looked  after,  is  yet  some- 
times met  with  by  them,  and  becomes  matter  of  infinite  joy  and  desire  to 
them  :  and  so  is  likened  fitly  to  a  treasure,  which  a  man  finding  casually 
in  a  field,  hid  again,  or  concealed  it,  and  then,  designing  to  get  into  his 
possession,  accounts  no  price  he  can  pay  too  dear  for  it.  Others  there 
are  which  have  followed  the  study  of  wisdom,  and  thirsted  after  some  in- 
struction :  and  then  the  Gospel  of  Christ  comes  as  a  rich  prize  doth  to  a 
merchant,  which  is  in  pursuit  of  rich  merchandise,  and  meeting  with  a 
jewel  for  his  turn,  lays  out  all  his  estate  upon  it." 

The  cases  of  Jew  and  Gentile  will  respectively  exemplify  the  con- 
trast between  the  Pearl  and  the  Hid  Treasure  ;  though  of  course,  in  the 
case  of  the  Jews,  or  the  chiefest  part  of  them,  the  example  cannot  be 
carried  through,  as  they,  though  seeking  the  pearl,  having  a  zeal  for 
righteousness,  yet,  when  the  pearl  of  great  price  was  offered  to  them, 
were  not  willing  to  sell  all, — to  renounce  their  peculiar  privileges,  their 
self-righteousness,  and  all  else  that  they  held  dear,  that  they  might  buy 
that  pearl.  The  Gentiles,  on  the  contrary,  at  least  the  greater  number 
of  them,  came  upon  the  treasure  unawares.  Christ  was  found  of  them 
that  sought  him  not,  and  the  blessings  of  his  Gospel  revealed  to  them 
who  before   had  not  divined  that  there  were  such  blessings  for  man.* 

*  Grotius :  Doctrina  Evangelica  quibusdam  affulsit,  neque  de  Deo,  neque  de  vita 
emendandA,  neque  de  spe  vitae  alterius  quicquam  cogitantibus,  quales  erant  plerique  in 
gentibus  externis,  quibus  illud  vaticinium  Paulus  aptat :  Inventus  sum  non  quaerentibus 
me.  Erant  et  sapientiae  studiosi  inter  Judaeos  et  alibi,  qui  veritatis  cognoscendae  de- 
siderio  quodam  tangebantur,  quive  Prophetam  aliquem  aut  ipsum  etiam  Messiam  avidis 
animis  expectabant.  Priores  respicit  thesauri  comparatio,  posteriores  ista  de  unione. 
Bengel  recognizes  the  sames  distinction :  Inventio  thesauri  non  praesupponit  to  quaerere, 
ut  margaritae,  quae  percontatione  inveniuntur.  Alex.  Knox,  in  his  Eemains  (v.  1, 
p.  416,  seq.),  has  very  excellent  remarks  to  the  same  effect.  There  is  rather  a  coa- 
firmation  of  this  in  the  forms  which  the  two  parables  assume.     In  this  the  treasure  is 


100  THE  HID  TREASURE. 

Or  again,  we  might  instance  Nathanael,  as  an  example  of  the  more  re- 
ceptive nature, — of  one  who  has  the  truth  found  for  him  ;  or  a  still  more 
striking  example, — the  Samaritan  woman,  (John  iv.)  who  was  thinking 
of  anything  more  than  of  lighting  on  the  hid  treasure,  when  she  came  to 
draw  water  from  the  well.  Yet  in  this  character,  there  cannot  be  a  total 
absence  of  seeking  for  the  truth ;  only  it  is  a  desire  that  has  hitherto 
slumbered  in  the  soul,  and  displays  itself  rather  as  a  love  of  the  truth 
when  revealed,  and  at  once  a  joyful  and  submissive  acquiescence  to  it, 
than  in  any  active  previous  quest.  In  both,  there  must  be  the  same 
willingness  to  embrace  it,  when  it  is  known,  and  to  hold  it  fast  at  all 
costs  and  hazards.  On  the  other  hand,  we  have,  perhaps,  no  such  pic- 
ture of  a  noble  nature,  seeking  for  the  pearl  of  price,  and  not  resting 
till  he  had  found  it,  as  that  which  Augustine  gives  of  himself  in  his  Con- 
fessions ;  though  we  also  have  many  more,  such  as  Justin  Martyr's  ac- 
count of  himself,  in  his  first  dialogue  with  Trypho,  when  he  tells  how  he 
had  gone  through  the  whole  circle  of  Greek  philosophy,  seeking  in  vain 
for  something  which  would  satisfy  the  longings  of  his  soul,  and  never  find- 
ing what  he  wanted,  till  he  found  it  in  the  Gospel  of  Christ. 

The  circumstance  which  supplies  the  groundwork  of  this  first  pa- 
rable, namely,  the  finding  of  a  concealed  treasure,  must  have  been  of 
much  more  frequent  occurrence  in  an  insecure  state  of  society,  such  as 
in  almost  all  ages  has  been  that  of  the  East,  than  happily  it  can  be  with 
us.  A  writer  on  Oriental  literature  and  customs,  mentions  that  in  the 
East,  on  account  of  the  frequent  changes  of  dynasties,  and  the  revolu- 
tions which  accompany  them,  many  rich  men  divide  their  goods  into 
three  parts :  one  they  employ  in  commerce,  or  for  their  necessary  sup- 
port;  one  they  turn  into  jewels,  which,  should  it  prove  needful  to  fly, 
could  be  easily  carried  witli  them  ;  a  third  part  they  bury.  But  while 
they  trust  no  one  with  the  place  where  the  treasure  is  buried,  so  is  the 
same,  should  they  not  return  to  the  spot  before  their  death,  as  good  as 
lost  to  the  living,  (compare  Jer.  xli.  8,)  until,  by  chance,  a  lucky  pea- 
sant, while  he  is  digging  his  field,  lights  upon  it.  So  that  when  we  read 
in  Eastern  tales,  how  a  man  has  found  a  buried  treasure,  and,  in  a  mo- 
ment, risen  from  poverty  to  great  riches,  this  is.  in  fact,  an  occurrence 
that  not  unfrequcntly  happens,  and  is  a  natural  consequence  of  the  cus- 
toms of  these  people.*     Modern  books  of  travels  continually  bear  wit- 

the  prominent  circumstance  : — "  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  unto  treasure."  Now 
if  the  other  had  been  cast  in  the  same  mould,  it  would  have  been  said,  The  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  like  unto  a  pearl ;  but  not  so,  it  ia  "  like  unto  a  merchant-man  ;"  so  that 
the  person  seeking  is  there  at  the  centre  of  the  spiritual  picture,  the  thing  found,  here. 
This  is  scarcely  accidental. 

*  Richardson  {Dissert,  on  the  Languages,  Jjc,  of  Eastern  Nations,  p.  180) ;  quoted 


THE  HID  TREASURE.  IQl 

ness  to  the  universal  belief  In  the  existence  of  such  hid  treasures  ;  so 
that  the  traveller  often  finds  great  difficulty  in  obtaining  information 
about  antiquities,  and  is  sometimes  seriously  inconvenienced,  or  even 
endangered,  in  his  researches  among  ancient  ruins,  by  the  jealousy  of 
the  neighbouring  inhabitants,  who  fear  lest  he  is  coming  to  carry  away 
concealed  hoards  of  wealth  from  among  them,  of  which,  by  some  means 
or  other,  he  has  got  notice.  Another  evidence  of  this  wide-spread  belief 
is,  that  part  of  the  skill  of  an  Eastern  magician  should  consist  in  being 
able  to  detect  the  places  where  these  secreted  treasures  will  successfully 
be  looked  for.*  Often,  too,  a  man  abandoning  the  regular  pursuits  of 
industry,  will  devote  himself  to  treasure-seeking,  in  the  hope  of  growing, 
through  some  happy  chance,  rich  of  a  sudden. f  (See  Job  iii.  21  ; 
Prov.  ii,  4.)  The  contrast,  however,  between  the  present  parable  and 
the  following,  noticed  already,  renders  it  unlikely  that  in  the  present  we 
are  to  assume  the  finder  to  have  been  in  search  of  the  treasure ;  he  ra- 
ther stumbles  upon  it  unawares,:]:  probably  while  he  is  engaged  as  an 
hireling  in  cultivating  another  man's  field. 

Some,  in  the  interpretation,  draw  a  distinction  between  the  field  and 
the  treffsure ;  making  the  first  to  be  the  Holy  Scriptures;  the  second, 
the  hidden  mystery  of  the  knowledge  of  Christ  contained  in  them,§ 
which  when  a  man  has  partly  perceived, — discovered,  that  is,  and  got  a 
glimpse  of  the  treasure,  he  is  willing  to  renounce  all  meaner  aims  and 
objects ;  that  having  leisure  to  search  more  and  more  into  those  Scrip- 
tures, to  make  them  his  own,  he  may  become  rich  in  the  knowledge  of 
Christ  which  therein  is  contained.  Yet  to  me  the  field  rather  repre- 
sents the  outer  visible  Church,  as  contradistinguished  from  the  in- 
ward spiritual,  with  which  the  treasure  would  then  agree.    As  the  man 

by  Rosenmuller  {Alte  und  Neue  Morgenland,  v.  5,  p.  197).  Compare  the  strange  story 
told  by  Tacitus,  Annal.,  1.  16,  c.  1-3. 

*  See  Burder's  Oriental  Literature,  v.  1,  p.  275  ;  and  for  evidence  of  tiie  same  in 
old  time,  Becker's  Charikles,  v.  1,  p.  224. 

t  The  reader  of  Plato  will  remember  his  admirable  words  De  Legg.,l.  11,  p.  913. 

t  Such  a  treasure,  in  a  field,  would  naturally  be  most  often  found  quite  unexpected- 
ly ;  as  Horace  :  0  si  urnam  argenti  fors  qua  miki  monstret ; — it  would  often  be  turned 
up  by  the  husbandman  engaged  in  digging  or  ploughing,  and  thinking  of  no  such  thing : 
O  si  sub  rastro  crepet  argenti  mihi  seria  !  (Persius.) 

§  So  Jerome  {Corrun.  in  Matih.,  in  loc.) :  Thesaurus  iste,  .  .  .  sanctse  Scripturae  in 
quibus  reposita  est  notitia  Salvatoris  ;  and  Augustine  {Qucest.  Evang.,  I.  1,  qu-  13) : 
Thesaurum  in  agro  absconditum,  dixit  duo  Testamenta  Legis  in  Ecclesia,  quae  quis 
cum  ex  parte  intellect's  attigerit,  sentit  illic  magna  latere,  et  vadit  et  vendit  omnia 
sua,  et  emit  agrum  ilium,  id  est,  contemtu  temporalium  comparat  sibi  otium,ut,sit  di- 
ves cognitione  Dei.  Alex.  Knox  has  an  ingenious  view  of  the  relation  between  the 
treasure  and  the  field  which  contains  the  treasure,  in  his  Eemains,  v.  1,  p.  418. 


102  THE  HID  TREASURE. 

who  before  looked  on  the  field  with  careless  eyes,  prized  it  but  as  an- 
other field,  now  sees  in  it  a  new  worth,  now  determines  that  nothing  shall 
separate  him  from  it, — so  he  who  recognizes  the  Church,  not  as  an  hu- 
man institute,  but  a  divine, — as  a  dispenser,  not  of  earthly  gifts,  but  of 
heavenly, — who  has  learned  that  God  is  in  the  midst  of  it, — sees  now 
that  it  is  something  different  from,  and  something  more  than,  all  earthly 
societies,  with  which  hitherto  he  has  confounded  it :  and  henceforth  it  is 
precious  in  his  sight,  even  to  its  outermost  skirts,  for  the  sake  of  its  in- 
ward  glory,  which  is  now  revealed  to  his  eyes.  And  he  sees,  too,  that 
blessedness  is  unalterably  linked  to  communion  with  it ;  as  the  man 
cannot  have  the  treasure  and  leave  the  field,  but  both  or  neither  must 
be  his,  so  he  cannot  have  Christ  except  in  his  Church ;  none  but  the 
golden  pipes  of  the  sanctuary  are  used  for  the  conveyance  of  the  golden 
oil;  (Zech.  iv.  12;)  he  cannot  have  Christ  in  his  heart,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  separate  his  fortunes  from  those  of  Christ's  struggling,  suf- 
fering, warring  Church  :  the  treasure  and  the  field  go  together ;  both  or 
neither  must  be  his. 

But  not  to  anticipate  the  progress  of  the  parable, — this  treasure 
"  when  a  man  hath  found,  he  hideih  /"  having  laid  it  open  in  the  disco- 
very, he  covers  it  up  again,  while  he  goes  and  effects  the  purchase  of 
the  field.  By  these  words  it  cannot,  of  course,  be  meant  that  he  who 
has  discovered  the  treasures  of  wisdom  and  knowledge  that  are  hidden  in 
Christ  Jesus,  will  desire  to  keep  his  knowledge  to  himself,  since  rather 
he  will  feel  himself,  as  he  never  did  before,  a  debtor  to  all  men,  to  make 
all  men  see  what  is  the  fellowship  of  the  mystery  that  is  hid  in  Christ. 
He  will  go  like  Andrew  to  his  brother  man,  and  say  to  him  "  We  have 
found  the  Messias,"  and  will  seek  to  bring  him  to  Jesus.  If  he  hide  the 
treasure,  that  will  be,  not  lest  another  should  find  it,  but  lest  he  himself 
should  lose  it.*  In  the  first  moments  that  the  truth  is  revealed  to  a  soul, 
there  may  well  be  a  tremulous  fear  lest  the  blessing  found  should,  by 
some  means  or  other,  escape  from  it  again  ;  the  anxiety  that  it  may  not 
do  so,  and  precautions  for  this  end  taken,  would  seem  to  be  the  truth 
signified  by  this  re-concealment  of  the  treasure  found. — Having  thus 
secured  it  for  the  moment,  the  finder,  ''for  joy  thereof ,-f  goeth  and  selleth 

*  Maldonatus :  Non  ne  alius  inveniat,  sed  ne  ipse  perdat ;  Jerome  (Comm.  in 
Matth.,  in  loc.)  :  Non  quod  hoc  de  invidia  facial,  sed  quod  timore  servantis  et  nolentis 
perdere,  abscondit  in  corde  suo  queni  pristinis  prsetulit  facultatibus.  H.  de  Sto.  Victore 
has  a  somewhat  different  explanation  {De  Area.  Mor.,  1.  3,  c.  6) :  Thesaurum  inven- 
tum  manifestat.quiaccepium  donum  Sapientiaj  in  ostentatione  portat.  Thesaurum  au- 
tem  inventum  abscondit,  qui  accepto  dono  Sapientiai  nou  foris  in  oculis  hominum,  sed 
intus  coram  Deo  inde  gloriari  qua;rit. 

t   'Arrd  t/Ij  ;^;a|odj  a  v  r  o  v.      But  perhaps  rather  "for  his  joy"  (dn-u  ri7£  x^P"?  avroj). 


THE  HID  TREASURE.  103 

all  that  he  hath,  and  huyeth  that  field  :^''  the  joy  is  expressly  mentioned 
here,  being  that  in  the  strength  of  which  the  finder  of  the  spiritual  trea- 
sure is  enabled  to  go  and  sell  all  that  he  hath  ;*  no  compulsion,  no 
command  is  necessary  ,•  lor  joy  thereof  he  cannot  do  otherwise ;  all 
other  things  have  now  no  glory,  "  by  reason  of  the  glory  which  ex- 
celleth." 

Augustine  excellently  illustrates  this  part  of  the  parable.  Describ- 
ing the  crisis  of  his  own  conversion,  and  how  easy  he  found  it,  through 
this  joy,  to  give  up  all  those  pleasures  of  sin  that  he  had  long  dreaded  to 
be  obliged  to  renounce,  which  had  long  held  him  fast  bound  in  the  chains 
of  evil  custom,  and  which  if  he  renounced,  it  seemed  to  him  as  though 
life  itself  would  not  be  to  be  endured,  he  exclaims  :  "  How  sweet  did  it 
at  once  become  to  me,  to  want  the  sweetnesses  of  those  toys  !  and  what 
I  feared  to  be  parted  from  was  now  a  joy  to  part  with.  For  thou  didst 
cast  them  forth  from  me,  thou  true  and  highest  sweetness.  Thou  cast- 
edst  them  forth,  and,  for  them,  enteredst  in  thyself,  sweeter  than  all 
pleasure. "f  The  parting  with  those  other  delights,  which  had  hitherto 
held  him  bound,  was,  in  Augustine's  case,  the  selling  all  that  he  had, 
that  he  might  buy  the  the  field.  Compare  Phil.  iii.  4-11,  where  St. 
Paul  declares  to  us  how  he  too  sold  all  that  he  had,  renounced  his  trust 
in  his  own  righteousness,  in  his  spiritual  and  fleshly  privileges,  that  he 
might  "  win  Christ  and  be  found  in  him."  In  each  of  these  illustrious 
instances,  the  man  parted  with  the  dearest  thing  that  he  had,  so  to  make 
the  treasure  his  own  :  though,  in  each  case,  how  different  was  the  thing 
parted  with  !  So,  too,  whenever  any  man  renounces  the  thing  that  is 
closest  to  him,  rather  than  that  that  should  be  an  hinderance  to  his  em- 
bracing and  making  his  own  all  the  blessings  of  the  Gospel, — when  the 
lover  of  money  renounces  his  covetousness, — and  the  indolent  man,  his 
ease, — and  the  lover  of  pleasure,  his  pleasure, — and  the  wise  man,  his 
confidence  in  the  wisdom  of  this  world,  then  each  is  selling  what  he  has 
that  he  may  buy  the  field  which  contains  the  treasure.  When  the  Lord 
says,  (Matt.  x.  37-39,)  "  He  that  loveth  father  or  mother  more  than  me, 
is  not  worthy  of  me,  &c. ;"  he  is,  in  fact,  exhorting  to  this  selling  of  all 
that  we  have ;  see  also  Matt.  xvi.  24 ;  and  Mark  ix.  43-48,  where  the 
same  command  is  given.  And  yet,  in  the  present  case,  it  is  not  merely 
a  command  ;  it  is  not  to  be  considered  as  an  arbitrary  condition,  imposed 
from  without,  but  rather  a  delightful  constraint,  acknowledged  within : 


*  Bengel:  Gaudium  spirituale,  stimulus  abnegandi  mundum. 

t  Confess.,  1.  9,  c.  1 :  Quam  suave  mihi  subilo  factum  est  carere  suavitatibus  nuga- 
rum,  et  quas  amiltere  metus  fuerat,  jam  dimittere  gaudium  erat.  Ejiciebas  enim  eas 
a  me,  vera  tu  et  summa  suavitas,  ejiciebas  et  intrabas  pro  eis,  omni  voluptate  dulcior. 


104  THE  HID  TREASURE. 

even  as  a  man  would  willingly  fling  down  pebbles  and  mosses,  which 
hitherto  he  had  been  gathering,  and  with  which  he  had  filled  his  hands, 
if  pearls  and  precious  stones  were  offered  to  him;*  or  as  the  dead  leaves 
easily  and  as  of  themselves  fall  off  from  the  tree,  when  propelled  by  the 
new  blossoms  and  buds  which  are  forcing  their  way  from  behind. 

But  a  difficulty  has  been  sometimes  found  in  the  circumstance  of  the 
finder  of  the  treasure  going  and  buying  the  field,-f  keeping  back,  as  it  is 
evident  that  he  did,  from  the  owner,  the  knowledge  of  the  fact  which  en- 
hanced its  value  so  greatly,  that  either  he  would  not  have  parted  \vith  it 
at  all,  or  only  at  a  much  higher  price.  They  argue  that  it  is  against 
the  decorum  of  the  divine  teaching  and  of  the  Divine  Teacher,  that  an 
action,  morally  questionable  at  least,  if  not  absolutely  unrighteous,  should 
be  used  even  for  the  outward  setting  forth  of  a  spiritual  action  which  is 
commended  and  urged  upon  others  as  worthy  of  imitation  ;  that  there  is 
a  certain  approbation  of  the  action  conveyed,  even  in  the  very  use  of  it 
for  such  ends  ;  in  fact,  they  find  the  same  difficulty  here  as  in  the  para- 
bles of  the  Unjust  Steward,  and  the  Unjust  Judge.  Olshausen,:}:  so  far 
from  evading  the  difficulty,  or  seeking  to  rescue  the  present  parable  from 
underlying  the  same  difficulty,  as  undoubtedly  cleaves  to  one  of  those, 
himself  brings  forward  the  likeness  existing  between  the  two,  and  affirms 
that,  in  both,  prudence  (Klugheit)  with  regard  to  divine  things,  is  com- 
mended ;  so  that  they  are  parables  of  the  same  class,  and  in  this  respect, 
at  least,  containing  the  same  moral.  But  to  the  objection  made  above, 
it  seems  enough  to  say,  that  not  every  part  of  his  conduct  who  found  the 
treasure,  is  proposed  for  imitation,  or  as  affording  a  point  of  comparison,^ 

*  Augustine  :  Ecce  petis  a  Deo,  et  dicis,  Domine,  da  mihi.  Quid  tibi  dabit  qui 
aliunde  manus  tuas  videt  occupatas  1  Ecce  Dominus  vult  dare  quae  sua  sunt,  et  non  videt 
ubi  ponat ;  and  again  (In  1  Ep.  Joh.,  Tract.  4)  ;  Bono  implendus  es,  funde  malum. 
Puta  quia  melle  te  vult  implere  Deus.  Si  aceto  plenus  es,  ubi  mel  pones?  Funden- 
dum  est  quod  portabat  vas.  Mundandum  est,  etsi  cum  labore,  cum  tritura :  ut  fiat 
aptum  cuidam  rei. 

t  It  is  curious,  and  is  noticed  by  Vitringa  {Erkldr.  d.  Parab.,  p.  235),  that  we 
should  have  in  ancient  history,  an  account  almost  exactly  answering  to  that  which 
supplies  the  groundwork  of  the  present  parable.  After  Mardonius  had  been  conquer- 
ed at  Plataea,  a  report  existed  that  he  had  left  great  treasures  buried  within  the  circuit 
where  his  tent  had  stood ;  Polycrates,  a  Theban,  buying  the  ground,  sought  long  for 
the  treasure,  but  not  finding  it,  inquired  at  Delphi,  and  was  told  "  to  turn  every  stone," 
which  doing,  he  found  it.  Such  the  proverb  collectors  give  as  the  origin  of  the  pro- 
verb, TTifTa  \iOov  Kivci.     (See  the  Farmm.  Grac,  Oxf ,  1836,  p.  363.) 

t  In  his  Biblischer  Commentar,  a  most  interesting  and  instructive  work,  to  which 
my  obligations  are  large  and  frequent :  it  has  unhappily  been  left  unfinished  by  his 
death.  I  know  no  work  which  would  so  favourably  present  the  better  German  the- 
ology to  the  English  reader,  as  would  this. 

§  Augustine  (Enarr.  in  Ps.  Ivii.  6) :  Non  undecunque  datur  similitudo  a  Scrip- 
turis,  laudator  ipsa  res,  sed  tantiim  inde  similitudo  trahitur. 


THE  PEARL.  105 

but  only  his  earnestness  in  securing  the  treasure  found  ;  his  fixed  pur- 
pose to  secure  and  make  it  his  own,  at  all  costs  and  all  hazards,  and 
(which,  I  suppose,  is  Olshausen's  meaning)  his  prudence,  without  any 
affirmation  that  the  actual  manner  in  which  that  prudence  was  exercised, 
was  praiseworthy  or  not.  * 


PARABLE  VI. 


THE    PEARL. 

Matthew  xiii.  45,  46. 

Almost  all  which  would  have  been  to  be  said  upon  this  parable,  had  it 
stood  alone,  has  been  anticipated  in  that  which  went  immediately  before. 
The  relations  in  which  the  two  stand  to  one  another  have  been  already 
noticed  : — we  have  here  not  merely  a  finder,  but  also  a  seeker,  of  true 
wisdom — "  The  kingdom  of  God  is  like  unto  a  merchant  man\  seeking 
goodly  pearls."  To  find  them  has  been  the  object  of  his  labours  :  "  the 
search  is  therefore  determinate,  discriminative,  unremittintr."  He  has  set 
his  purpose  distinctly  before  him,  and  to  that  is  bending  all  his  energies  ; 
he  is  one  in  fact,  who  has  felt  that  man  was  not  made  in  vain,  that  there 
must  be  a  centre  of  peace  for  him,  a  good  that  will  satisfy  all  the  crav- 
ings of  his  soul,  and  who  is  determined  not  to  rest  till  he  has  found  that 
good.  He  does  not  perhaps  yet  know  that  it  is  but  one,  for  at  his  start- 
ing  he  is  seeking  many  goodly  pearls,  but  rather  perhaps  imagines  that 

*  In  books  of  casuistry,  where  they  treat  of  the  question,  how  far  and  where  a 
finder  has  a  right  to  appropriate  things  found,  this  parable  is  frequently  adduced,  as  by 
Aquinas  (Summ.  Theol.,  1.  2,  qu.  69,  art.  5)  :  Circa  res  inventas  est  dislinguendum. 
Quaedam  enim  sunt,  quae  nunquam  fuerint  in  bonis  alieujus,  sicut  lapilli  et  gemma? 
quae  inveniuntur  in  litore  maris.  Et  talia  occupanti  conceduntur,  et  eadem  ratio  est 
de  thesauris  antiquo  tempore  sub  terra  occul talis,  quorum  non  extat  aliquis  possessor  : 
nisi  quod  secundiW  leges  civiles  tenetur  inventor  dare  medietatem  domino  agri  si  in 
alieno  agro  invenerit.     Propter  quod   in   parabola  dicitur,  {Matth.  xiii.,)  de  inventore 

thesauri,  quod  emit  agrum,  quasi   ut  haberet  jus  possidendi  totuni   thesaurum. We 

read  of  Apollonius  of  Tyana  (see  his  Life,  1.  2,  c.  15)  being  called  in  to  decide  a  quar- 
rel between  the  buyer  and  seller  of  such  a  field,  as  to  which  of  them  a  treasure  found  in 
it  shall  belong.  He  does  not  much  help  the  law  of  the  matter,  for  he  adjudges  it  to  which- 
ever of  the  parties  shall  be  found,  on  scrutiny,  to  have  lived  in  time  past  the  holiest  life. 

t  The  pearl-merchant  was  termed  margaritarius,  though  this  name  was  sometimes 
also  given  to  the  diver. 

8 


106  THE  PEARL. 

it  is  to  be  made  up  and  combined  from  many  quarters  :  but  this  also  will 
be  revealed  to  him  in  due  time.  * 

It  makes  much  for  the  beauty  of  the  parable,  and  the  fitness  of  the 
image  used  to  set  forth  the  surpassing  value  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  that 
we  keep  in  mind  the  esteem  in  which  the  pearl  was  held  in  antiquity,  f 
so  that  there  is  record  of  almost  incredible  sums  having  been  given  for 
single  pearls,  when  perfect  of  their  kind.  There  were  many  defects 
which  materially  diminished  their  value,  as  for  instance,  if  they  had  a 
yellow  or  dusky  tinge,  or  were  not  absolutely  round  or  smooth.  The  skill 
and  wariness  which  on  this  account  the  pearl-merchant  must  have  needed 
lest  he  should  have  a  meaner  thing  put  upon  him  in  lieu  of  the  best,  will 
not  be  without  its  answer  in  the  spiritual  world.:]:  Origen§  observes, 
that  the  fact  of  there  being  so  many  pearls  of  an  inferior  quality  (qtavkoi) 
adds  an  emphasis  to  the  epithet  here  used.  The  merchant  is  seeking 
^'goodly"  pearls,  as  he  whom  the  merchant  represents,  has  set  before 
himself,  not  mean  and  poor,  but  noble  and  worthy,  aims,  even  in  times 
anterior  to  that  in  which  he  finds  the  pearl  of  price.  He  is  not  one  living 
for  sensual  objects.  He  has  not  made  pleasure,  or  the  acquisition  of 
money,  or  the  winning  of  the  high  places  of  the  world,  the  end  of  his 
labours.  But  he  has  been,  it  may  be,  a  seeker  of  wisdom,  a  philanthro- 
pist, a  worshipper  of  the  beautiful  in  nature  or  in  art — who  has  hoped  to 

*  Augustine  {Serm.  de  Disc.  Christ.,  v.  6,  p.  583,  Bened.  ed.)  assumes  the  oneness 
of  that  which  here  is  found  as  furnishing  another  point  of  contrast  beside  those  ah-eady 
detailed,  between  this  parable  and  the  last.  There  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  presented 
as  manifold,  even  as  a  treasure  would  contain  precious  things  of  various  kinds  laid  up 
in  it ;  here  it  is  presented  in  its  unity — as  much  as  to  say,  This  which  is  so  multifold, 
is  also  single  and  at  heart  but  one. 

t  Pliny:  Principium  culmenque  omnium  rerum  pretii  margaritse  tenent:  and  the 
word  which  was  rendered  (Prov.  iii.  15;  xx.  15;  xxxi.  10)  by  earlier  translators 
of  Scripture  most  commonly  as  rubies,  is  generally  believed  now  to  signify  pearls  ; 
though  according  to  Winer  (Eeal  WOrterb.,  s.  v.  Perlen)  the  question  is  still  unsettled. 

t  Augustine  (Serm.  37,  c.  3  :)  Discite  lapides  sstimare,  negotiatores  regni  coelo- 
rum. 

§  Comm.  in  Matth.,  (in  loo.)  where  he  has  much  curious  learning  about  pearls. — 
The  theory  of  their  formation  current  in  ancient  times  is  detailed  by  him.  The  fish 
conceived  the  pearl  from  the  dew  of  heaven,  and  according  to  the  quality  of  the  dew,  it 
was  pure  and  round,  or  cloudy  and  deformed  with  specks.  (See  Plin.  H.  N.,  1.  9,  c. 
35.  Ammian.  Marcell.,  1.  23,  c.  6,  §  85.)  The  state  of  the  atmosphere  at  the  time 
of  their  conception,  was  then  naturally  supposed  to  exercise  a  great  influence  on  their 
size  and  colour,  and  even  the  time  of  the  day.  Thus  Isidore  Ilisp. :  Meliores  .  .  .  can- 
didje  margaritae  quam  quae  flavescunt  ;  illas  enim  aut  juventus,  aut  niatutini  roris  con- 
ceptio  reddit  Candidas;  has  senectus  vel  vesperlinus  aiir  reddil obscuras.  See  also  Mr. 
Greswell's  Exp.  of  the  Par.,  v.  2,  p.  220-222  ;  and  for  all  which  could  be  got  together 
about  them,  Bochart's  Hierozoicon,  pars^,  1.  5,  c.  5-8. 


THE  PEARL.  107 

find  his  soul's  satisfaction  in  these.  But  this  pearl  of  price,  what  is  it, 
which  at  length  he  finds  ?  Many  answers  have  been  given,  which  yet, 
however  they  may  seem  to  diverge  from  one  another,  grow  out  of  one 
and  the  same  root ;  all  ultimately  resolve  themselves  into  one  ;* — the 
pearl  is  the  kingdom  of  God  within  a  man, — or  God  revealing  himself  in 
the  soul, — or  the  knowledge  of  Christ, f — or  Christ  himselfjlj: — these  are 
all  but  different  ways  of  expressing  the  same  thing. 

But  when  the  merchant  had  found  this  pearl  of  price,  he  "  went  and 
sold  all  that  he  had,  and  bought  it.'^  What  this  selling  of  all  means,  has 
been  already  observed  ;  and  to  understand  what  the  buying  means,  and 
what  it  does  not  mean,  we  may  compare  Isai.  Iv.  1  ;  Matt.  xxv.  9,  10  ; 
Rev.  iii.  18  ;  and  Prov.  xxiii.  23,  "  Buy  the  truth,  and  sell  it  not;" 
obtain  the  truth  at  any  price,  and  let  no  price  tempt  you  to  let  it  go.  The 
contrast  between  the  one  pearl  which  the  merchant  finds  and  the  many 
which  he  had  been  seeking,  is  here  by  no  means  to  be  overlooked ;  the 
same  contrast  is  marked  elsewhere ;  Martha  is  troubled  about  many 
things  ;  Mary  has  found  that  but  one  thing  is  needful.  (Luke  x.  41,  42.) 
There  is  but  one  such  pearl  (though  every  one  may  have  that  one,)  since 
the  truth  is  one,  even  as  God  is  one  ;  and  the  truth  possessed  brings  that 
unity  into  the  heart  of  man,  which  sin  had  destroyed  §  that  which  through 

*  See  Suicer's  Thes.,  s.  v.  fiapyapirns. 

t  H.  de  Sto  Victore  (Annot.  in  Matth. :)  BohcE  maigaritaB,  lex  et  prophetEe  :  una 
pretiosa,  Salvatoris  scientia.  So  Origen  on  this  place  says,  the  law  and  prophets  were 
as  the  lamp  which  was  precious  till  the  sun  arose  ;  he  has  these  instructive  references, 
Matt.  xvii.  5-8  ;  2  Cor.  iii.  10.  Schoettgen  observes  {Hor.  Heb.,  v.  1,  p.  132  :)  Judsei 
doctrinas  et  lectiones  pulchras  ac  notatu  dignas  vocarunt  margaritas  : — as  in  later  Latin, 
magaritum  was  a  name  of  endearment.  Von  Bohlen  (Das  Alt.  Ind.,  v.  2,  p.  122,)  de- 
rives margarita  from  a  Sanscrit  word  man&arita;  signifying  The  Pure.  Another  name 
it  bore  signified  The  Beloved. 

t  Theophylact  says,  that  it  was  at  a  moment  when  it  lightened  that  the  conception 
of  the  pearl  from  the  heavenly  dew  took  place,  which  explains  an  otherwise  obscure  pas- 
sage in  Clement  of  Alex.,  PoUer's  ed.,  p.  1014,  when,  explaining  this  parable,  he  says,. 
"  This  pearl  is  the  most  pellucid  and  pure  Jesus,  whom  the  Virgin  conceived  from  the  di- 
vine lightning."  Augustine,  too,  (QucBst.ex  Matth., qn.  13,)  likens  Christ  to  the  pearl: 
though  he  does  not  bring  out  this  point  of  comparison  :  Est  enim  Verbum  Domini  luci- 
dum  candore  veritati?,  et  solidum  firmitate  aeternitatis,  et  undique  sui  simile  pulcritudine 
divinitatis,  qui  Deus  penetrata  carnis  testudine  intelligendusest.  Bochart  {Hierozoicon, 
pars  2, 1.  5,  c.  8,  in  fine,)  has  a  graceful  bringing  out  of  the  points  of  likeness  between 
the  kingdom  of  God,  and  a  pearl. 

§  H.  de  Sto  Victore  :  Quia  enim  mens  hominis  in  illo  uno  bono  stare  noluit,  in  quo 
potuit  feliciter  requiescere  . . .  projecta  foras  extra  semetipsam,  in  multiplicitatem  rerum 
visibilium  spargitur,  et  veritatem  quam  intus  caecata  a  fonte  haurire  non  potest,  quasi 
per  rivulos  quosdam  visibilium,  arescentibus  praecordiis,  saltern  sugere  conatur.  These 
words  are  from  a  Commentary  on  Ecclesiastes,  which  book  itself  is  a  profound  commen- 
tary on  this  parable. 


108  THE  DRAW  NET. 

sin  had  become  as  a  mirror  shattered  into  a  thousand  fragments,  and  every 
fragment  reflected  some  different  object,  is  now  reunited  again,  and  the 
whole  with  more  or  less  clearness  reflects,  as  it  was  intended  at  first  to 
do,  the  one  image  of  God.  It  is  God  alone  in  whom  any  intelligent  crea- 
ture can  find  its  centre  and  true  repose  ;  only  when  man  has  found  him, 
does  the  great  Eureka  break  forth  from  his  lips  ;  in  Augustine's  beauti- 
ful and  often  quoted  words,"  Lord,  thou  hast  made  us  for  thee,  and  our 
heart  is  disquieted  till  it  reacheth  in  thee."  * 

Before  concluding  the  notice  of  this  parable,  it  may  just  be  worth 
while  to  mention,  were  it  only  for  its  singularity,  an  interpretation,  which 
strangely  reverses  the  whole  matter.  The  merchant  seeking  goodly 
pearls  is  now  Christ  himself.  The  Church  of  the  elect  is  the  pearl  of 
price  ;  which  that  he  might  purchase  and  make  his  own,  he  parted  with 
all  that  he  had,  emptying  himself  of  his  divine  glory  and  taking  the  form 
of  a  servant,  f  Or  yet  more  ingeniously,  the  pearl,  as  in  the  common 
explanation,  is  still  interpreted  as  the  heavenly  blessedness,  and  Christ 
the  merchant,  who  that  he  might  secure  that  blessedness  to  us  and  make 
it  ours,  though  he  was  so  rich,  gladly  made  himself  poor,  buying  that 
pearl  and  that  treasure, — not  indeed  for  himself,  but  for  us. :): 


PARABLE  VII. 


THE    DRAW    NET. 

Matthew  xiii.  47-50. 

This  parable  would  at  first  sight  seem  to  say  exactly  the  same  thing  as 
thai  of  the  Tares.  Maldonatus,  led  away  by  this  apparent  identity  of 
purpose  in  the  two,  supposes  that  St.  Matthew  has  not  related  the  para- 
bles in  the  order  in  which  the  Lord  spoke  them,  but  that  this  should 
have  immediately  followed  upon  that.     Here  however  he  is  clearly  mis- 

*  Fecisti  nos  propter  te,  et  inquietum  est  cor  nostrum  donee  requiescat  in  te. 

t  Salmeron  (Serm  in  Par.  Evang.,  p.  66)  applies  the  same  to  the  parable  preceding : 
Homo  qui  invenit  thesaurum,  hoc  est,  pretiosam  Ecclesiam  electorum  .  .  .  Christus  est 
qui  pro  comparando  tanto  sanctorum  thesauro  omnia  bona  sua  distraxit.  Compare  the 
Briej  Exposition  of  Matth.  xiii.,  by  J.  N.  Darby,  pp.  30,  .SI. 

t  So  Drexelius  (0//;>.,  v.  1,  p.  209  :)  Quis  verior  Christo  Domino  mercator,  qui  pre- 
tium  sui  sanguinis  infinitum  pro  pretiosis  illis  mercibus  dedit  ?  Ver6  abiit,  vendiditque 
omnia,  famam,  sanguinem,  vitam  exposuit,  ut  nobis  coelum  emeret. 


THE  DRAW  NET.  109 

taken  ;  there  is  this  fundamental  difference  between  them,  that  the  cen- 
tral truth  of  that  is  the  present  intermixture  of  the  good  and  bad  ;  of  this, 
the  future  separation  ;  of  that,  that  men  are  not  to  effect  the  separation  ; 
of  this,  that  the  separation  will,  one  day,  by  God  be  effected  ;  so  that 
the  order  in  which  we  have  them  is  evidently  the  right  one,  as  that  is 
concerning  the  gradual  development, — this,  the  final  consummation  of 
the  Church.  Olshausen  draws  a  further  distinction  between  the  two, 
that  in  that,  the  kingdom  of  God  is  represented  rather  in  its  idea,  as 
identical  with  the  whole  world,  which  idea  it  shall  ultimately  realize  : 
in  this,  rather  in  its  present  imperfect  form,  as  a  less  contained  in  a  greater, 
which  yet,  indeed,  has  this  tendency  in  itself,  to  spread  over  and  em- 
brace all  that  greater  ; — the  sea  being  here  the  world,  and  the  net,  the 
Church  gatherinsr  in  its  members  from  the  world,  as  the  net  does  its  fish 
from  the  sea. 

Much  of  what  has  been  already  said,  in  considering  the  Tares,  will 
apply  here.  The  same  use  has  been  made  of  eitlier  parable  ;  there  is 
the  same  continual  appeal  to  this  as  to  that  in  the  Donatist  controversy, 
and  the  present  conveys,  to  all  ages,  the  same  instruction  as  that, — 
namely,  that  the  Lord  did  not  contemplate  his  visible  Church  as  a  com- 
munion in  which  there  should  be  no  intermixture  of  evil ;  but  as  there 
was  a  Ham  in  the  ark,  and  a  Judas  among  the  twelve,  so  there  should 
be  a  Babylon  even  within  the  bosom  of  the  spiritual  Israel ;  Esau  shall 
contend  with  Jacob  even  in  the  Church's  womb,*  till,  like  another  Rebe- 
kah,  she  shall  often  have  to  exclaim,  "  Why  am  I  thus  ?"  (Gen.  xxv.  22.) 
It  conveys,  too,  the  same  lesson,  that  this  fact  does  not  justify  self-willed 
departure  from  the  fellowship  of  the  Church,  an  impatient  leaping  over, 
or  breaking  through,  the  nets,  as  it  is  often  called  ;  but  the  Lord's  sepa- 
ration is  patiently  to  be  waited  for,  which  shall  surely  arrive  at  the  end 
of  the  present  age.j" 

*  See  Augustine,  Enarr.  in  Ps.  cxxvi.  3. 

t  The  following  extracts  will  show  the  uses,  either  practical  or  controversial,  to 
which  the  parable  was  turned.  Augustine  (Enarr.  in  Fs.  Ixiv.  6) :  Jam  in  niaricapti 
per  retia  fidei,  gaudeamus  nos  ibi  natare  adhuc  intra  retia,  quia  adhuc  mare  hoc  ssevit 
procellis,  sad  retia  quas  nos  ceperunt  perducentur  ad  litus.  Interim  intra  ipsa  retia, 
fratres,  bene  vivamus,  non  retia  rumpentes  foras  exeamus.  Multi  enim  ruperunt  retia 
et  schismata  fecerunt,  et  foras  exierunt.  Quia  malos  pisces  intra  retia  captos  tolerare 
se  nolle  dixerunt,  ipsi  mali  I'acti  sunt  potins,  quam  illi  qiios  se  non  potuisse  tolerare  dix- 
erunt. — The  curious  ballad  verses  which  are  found  at  the  commencement  of  his  Anti- 
Donatist  Tracts,  and  which  he  wrote  as  he  says,  to  bring  the  subject  within  the 
comprehension  of  the  most  unlearned,  begin  with  a  reference  to,  and  exposition  of,  this 
parable. 

Abundantia  peccatorum  solet  fratres  conturbare  ; 
Propter  hoc  Dominus  nosier  voluit  nos  prsemonere, 


110  THE  DRAW  NET. 

It  is  worth  our  while  to  consider  what  manner  of  net  it  is  to  which 
our  Lord  likens  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  In  the  heading  of  the  chapter 
in  our  Bibles,  it  is  called  a  draw  net,  and  the  particular  kind  is  distinct- 
ly specified  by  the  word  in  the  original.*  It  is  a  net  of  the  largest  size, 
suffering  nothing  to  escape  from  it ;  and  this,  its  all-embracing  nature, 
is  certainly  not  to  be  left  out  of  sight,  as  an  accidental  or  unimportant 
circumstance,  but  contains  in  fact  a  prophecy  of  the  wide  reach  and 
potent  operation  of  the  Gospel.  The  kingdom  of  heaven  should  hence- 
forward be  a  net,  not  cast  into  a  single  stream  as  hitherto,  but  into  the 

Comparans  regnum  coelorum  reticulo  misso  in  mare, 

Congreganti  niullos  pisces,  omne  genus  hinc  et  inde, 

Quos  cum  traxis?ent  ad  litus,  tunc  cceperunt  separare, 

Bonos  in  vasa  miserunt,  reliquos  malos  in  mare. 

Quisquis  recolit  Evangelium,  recognoscat  cum  timore: 

Videt  reticulum  Ecclesiam,  videt  hoc  seculum  mare. 

Genus  autem  mixtum  piscis,  Justus  est  cum  peccatore  : 

Seculi  finis  est  litus,  tunc  est  tempus  separare  : 

Quando  retia  ruperunt,  multum  dilexerunt  mare. 

Vasa  sunt  sedes  sanctorum,  quo  non  possunt  pervenire. 
The  following  quotations  from  the  minutes  of  the  conference  at  Carthage  will  show 
how  the  Donatists  sought  to  evade  the  force  of  the  arguments  drawn  from  this  parable, 
and  how  the  Catholics  replied.  They  did  not  deny  that  Christ  spake  in  this  parable  of 
sinners  being  found  mingled  with  the  righteous  in  the  Church  upon  earth,  yet  it  was  only 
concealed  smnera ;  they  affirmed  (Coll.  Carth.,  d.  3,)  hoc  de  reis  latentihus  dictum, 
quoniam  reticulum  in  mari  positum  quid  habeat,  a  piscatoribus,  id  est  a  sacerdotibus, 
ignoratur,  donee  extractum  ad  litus  ad  purgationem  boni  seu  mali  prodantur.  Ita  et 
latentes  et  in  Ecclesia  constituti,  et  a  sacerdotibus  ignorati,  in  divino  judicio  proditi, 
tanquam  pisces  mali  A  sanctorum  consortio  separantur.  Augustine  answers,  with  an 
allusion  to  Matt.  iii.  12  {Ad  Don.  post  Coll.,  c.  10)  :  Numquid  et  area  sub  aqua  vel 
terra  trituratur,  aut  certc  nocturnis  horis,  non  in  sole,  conteritur,  aut  in  ea  rusticus  csecus 
operatur? — It  is  evident  that  their  reply  was  a  mere  evasion  ;  that  they  took  refuge  in 
an  accidental  circumstance  in  the  parable,  namely,  that  so  long  as  the  nets  are  under 
water  their  contents  cannot  be  seen,  so  to  avoid  being  plainly  convinced  of  schism. 

*  Layfivri  (not  as  some  derive  it,  from  eo-w  dyeiv,  but  from  aarTco,  onero,)  an  hauling 
net,  as  distinguished  from  the  dufiiSXriiiTpov  or  casting  net  (Matt.  iv.  18) ;  in  Latin, 
fragum,  tragula,  verriculum.  It  was  of  immense  length.  On  the  coast  of  Cornwall, 
where  it  is  now  used,  and  bears  the  same  name,  seine  or  sean,  a  corruption  of  the 
Greek,  which  has  come  to  us  through  the  Vulgate  and  the  Anglo-Saxon,  it  is  some- 
times half  a  mile  in  length;  and  scarcely  could  have  been  much  smaller  among  the 
ancients,  since  it  is  spoken  of  as  nearly  taking  in  the  compass  of  an  entire  bay,  (vas- 
ta  sagena,  Manilius  )  It  is  leaded  below,  that  it  may  sweep  the  bottom  of  the  sea, 
and  supported  with  corks  above,  and  having  been  carried  out  so  as  to  enclose  a  large 
space  of  sea,  the  ends  are  then  brought  together,  and  it  is  drawn  up  upon  the  beach 
with  all  that  it  contains.  Cicero  calls  Verres,  with  a  play  upon  his  name,  ererriculum 
in  provincia,  in  that  he  swept  all  before  him  ;  and  in  the  Greek  Fathers  we  have  Oacuroti 
uayfivn,  KaraK^.vaiiov  aayfivn  (see  Suicer's  Thcs.,  8.  v.)  ;  in  each  case  with  allusion  to  the 


THE  DRAW  NET. 


Ill 


broad  sea  of  the  whole  world,  and  gathering  or  drawing  together  (John 
xi.  52,)  some  out  of  every  kindred  and  tongue  and  people  and  nation. 
Or  when  it  is  said,  that  it  " gathered  of  every  kind,"  we  may  understand 
both  good  and  bad.  As  the  servants  who  were  sent  to  invite  guests  to 
the  marriage  supper,  (Matt,  xxii.  10,)  "gathered  together  all,  as  many 
as  they  found,  both  bad  and  good  ;"  so  here  the  fishers  take  fish  of  all 
kinds  within  the  folds  of  the  net ; — men  of  every  diversity  of  moral  cha- 
racter have  the  Gospel  preached  to  them,  and  find  themselves  within  the 
limits  of  the  visible  Church.* 

But  as  all  do  not  use  the  advantages  which  the  communion  of  the 
Church  has  afforded  them,  an  ultimate  separation  is  necessary  ;  and  this 
is  next  described  ; — the  net,  "  when  it  was  full,  they  drew  to  shore,  and 
sat  doion  and  gathered  the  good  into  vessels,  but  cast  the  bad  away." 
When  the  number  of  God's  elect  is  accomplished,  then  the  separation  of 
the  precious  from  the  vile  shall  follow,  of  the  just  from  sinners.  It  is 
most  likely  that  from  some  image  like  that  which  our  parable  supplies, 
the  leaving  and  taking  of  Matt.  xxiv.  41,  42,  is  to  be  explained, — "  the 
one  shall  be  taken,  and  the  other  left."  Probably  there  as  here  the 
taking  is  for  blessedness,  the  selecting  of  the  precious ;  the  leaving  for 

all-embracing  nature  of  this  net,  which  allowed  no  escape.     See  Hab.  i.  15-17,  LXX., 
where  the  mighty  reach  of  the  Chaldaean  conquests  is  set  forth  under  this  image,  and 
by  this  word.     In  this  view  of  it,  as  an  a-ripavrov  S'iktvov  "Atti;,  how  grand   is  the  com- 
parison in  Homer  (Odyss.,  22.  384)  of  the  slaughtered  suitors,  whom  Ulysses  saw, — 
uar'  i^dvaSf  ovad'  a\ifjci; 
KoTXov  is  atytaXov  jtoXiiIs  CKToadc  daXaaar]! 
SiKTV(j  k^epvirav  ttoXvottm.      ol  it  n  Trdvrci, 
KUfiaO'  a\ds  Trodiovres,  enl  ipafiddoiai  Ki-)(yvTai. 

There  are  curious  notices  in  Herodotus  (iii.  149  :  vi.  31)  of  the  manner  in  which 
the  Persians  swept  away  the  conquered  population  from  some  of  the  Greek  islands  ; 
a  chain  of  men,  holding  hand  in  hand  and  stretching  across  the  whole  island,  ad- 
vanced over  its  whole  length — thus  taking,  as  it  were,  the  entire  population  in  a 
draw  net :  and  to  this  process  the  technical  name  cayrivcictv  was  applied.  Cf.  Plato's 
Menexenus  (p.  42,  Stallbaum's  ed.)  where  the  process  is  described  ;  De  Legg.,  1.  3,  p. 
698  ;  and  Plutarch,  De  Solert.  Animal.,  c.  26.  There  is  a  good  account  of  the 
trnynvrt  in  the  Diet,  of  Gr.  and  Rom.  Antt ,  s.  v.  Rete,  p.  823. 

*  Beza,  indeed,  translates  Ik  navrd;  yhov;,  ex  omni  rerum  genere,  as  mud,  shells, 
sea-weed,  and  whatever  else  of  worthless  would  be  gathered  together  within  the  folds 
of  a  net ;  these  things  would  then  be  understood  by  the  o-an-po,  which  are  described  in 
the  next  verse  as  cast  away;  and  so  it  is  in  the  Geneva  version,  "of  all  kinds  of 
things."  But  the  plain  sense  of  the  parable  would  seem  to  determine  that  it  is  fish  of 
all  kinds  as  the  Vulgate,  ex  omni  genere  piscium),  and  not  things  of  all  kinds,  which 
are  spoken  of;  in  the  words  of  H.  de  Slo  Victore  (Annott.  in  Matth.)  :  Congregat  ex 
omnibus  qui  minoribus  vel  majoribus  peccatis  sunt  a  Deo  divisi,  et  per  multas  iniquitates 
dispersi.  Another  name  of  the  net,  irdvaypov,  is  exactly  derived  from  this  collecting  of 
all  sorts  of  prey  within  its  folds. 


112  THE  DRAW  NET. 

destruction,  the  rejecting  of  the  vile ;  though  the  terms  have  sometimes 
been  understood  in  exactly  the  opposite  sense.  Yet  hardly  with  justice  ; 
for  what  is  the  "  left "  but  the  refused,  and  the  refused  but  the  refuse  ?* 
Whether  these  "  lad  "-j-  are  dead  putrid  fish,  such  as  sometimes  are  en- 
closed within  a  net,  and  brought  to  land, — or  fish  worthless,  and  good 
for  nothing,  "  that  which  was  sick  and  unwholesome  at  the  season,"  or 
fish  such  as  from  their  kind,  their  small  ness,  or  some  other  cause,  are 
unfit  to  be  either  sold  or  eaten,  and  are  therefore  flung  carelessly  aside, 
to  rot  upon  the  beach,  and  to  become  food  for  the  birds  of  prey,  (Ezek. 
xxxii.  3,  4,)  there  is  much  question ;  and  it  seems  not  easy,  as  it  is  not 
very  important,  to  decide. 

These  dead  or  worthless  fish  are  ^^  cast  atoay.''  An  entire  freedom 
from  all  evil  belongs  to  the  idea  of  the  Church,  and  this  idea  shall  be 
ultimately  realized.  Notwithstanding  all  that  mars  its  purity,  and  de- 
files its  brightness,  we  confess  our  belief  in  an  holy  Catholic  Church  ; 

*  The  nature  of  this  separation — that  it  will  be  with  entire  consideration — no 
hasty  work  confusedly  huddled  over — may  be  indicated  in  the  sitting  down  of  the 
fishers  for  the  task  of  sorting  the  good  from  the  bad.  Thus  Bengel,  who  to  this  Kadi- 
cavTCi  appends,  Studiose  ;  cf  Luke  .xiv.  28,  31  ;  xvi.  6.  At  the  same  time  it  com- 
pletes the  natural  picture : 

in  illo 
Cespite  consedi,  dum  lina  madentia  sicco, 
Utque  recenserem  captivos  ordine  pisces.  Ovid. 

t  ^a-pa,  soil.  i^BvSta.  Grotlus  :  Sunt  nugamenta  et  quisquiliae  piscium,  quod 
genus  ut  servatu  indignum,  videmus  a  piscatoribus  abjici :  (.'i/^pwra  ko!  anfia,  Lucian : 
pisces  frivolos,  Apuleius.)  Yet  Vitringa,  in  an  instructive  note  (Erklflr.  d.  Parah.,  p. 
344,  seq.,)  refers  to  Athenaeus  as  using  ai-npoX  i^^eits  in  opposition  to  rp6a,paTot.  As  the 
latter  are  the  fresh,  the  first  must  signify  stale,  or  here  yet  more  strongly,  putrid,  {aa-rrpdi, 
u  (T£a;)7ru)j,  Etym.  Mag.,)  and  he  denies  that  we  should  depart  from  this,  the  primary 
signification  of  the  word,  to  take  up  with  the  secondary.  But  on  the  other  hand,  to  find 
dead  fish  in  a  net,  though  it  will  sometimes  happen,  must  be  of  a  rare  occurrence,  and 
of  the  list  of  fishes,  which,  for  instance,  Ovid  gives  in  his  fragment  of  the  Halieuticon, 
how  many,  though  perfectly  fresh,  would  be  flung  aside  as  not  edible,  as  worthless  or 
noxious,  the  immunda  chromis,  merito  vilissinia  salpa  .  .  .  Et  nigrum  niveo  porlans 
in  corpore  virus  Loligo,  durique  sues;  or  again, — Et  capitis  duro  nocilurus  scorpius 
ictu, — all  which  might  well  have  been  gathered  in  this  aayinir].  We  have  proof  that  at 
times  some  of  them  were,  from  a  proverb  in  the  Panrm.  Graci  (Oxf  183G,  p.  14,) 
which  is  explained  as  containing  allusion  to  a  fisherman,  who  had  got  such  a  sea- 
scorpion  in  his  net,  by  which  he  was  stung,  while  carelessly  handling  its  contents. 
Moreover,  with  Jewish  fishermen  this  rejection  of  part  of  the  contents  would  of  neces- 
sity have  taken  place,  not  because  some  of  the  fish  were  dead,  but  because  they  were 
unclean  ;  "  all  that  have  not  fins  and  scales  shall  be  an  abomination  unto  you."  (Lev. 
xi.  9-12.)  These  probably  were  the  aairpi.  Fritzche  combines  both  meanings,  for  he 
explains  it,  inutiles  et  putridos.  Our  translation  using  the  word  "  bad,"  has  not  de- 
termined absolutely  for  one  sense  or  the  other.     See  Suicer's  Thes.,  a  v. 


THE  DRAW  NET.  113 

for  we  believe  that  whatever  we  see  cleaving  to  it,  which  is  not  holy,  is 
an  alien  disturbing  element,  which  shall  one  day  be  perfectly  separated 
from  it.  As  all  the  prophets  foreannounce  such  a  glorious  consumma- 
tion, so  in  the  Revelation  it  is  contemplated  as  at  last  accomplished  : 
"  ivUhout  are  dogs,"  (Rev.  xxii.  15,)  where,  as  in  the  words  used  here, 
and  in  so  many  other  passages,  the  Church  is  contemplated  as  an  holy 
enclosure,*  into  which  nothing  unclean  has  a  right  to  enter ;  and  from 
which,  if  it  has  by  stealth  or  force  effected  an  entrance,  it  shall  sooner 
or  later  be  excluded — shut  out  for  ever,  even  as  those  ceremonially  un- 
clean, in  witness  of  this,  were  obliged  to  remain  for  a  season  without  the 
camp,  which  was  the  figure  of  the  true  kingdom  of  God. — Our  Lord 
offers  no  explanation  of  the  "  vessels  "  into  which  the  good  fish  are  ga- 
thered ;  nor,  indeed,  is  any  needed  :  what  the  "  barn  "  was  at  ver.  30, 
the  "  vessels  "  are  here  ;  the  "  many  mansions  "  (John  xiv.  2)  which 
the  Lord  went  to  prepare  for  his  people,  the  "  everlasting  habitations  " 
(Luke  xvi.  9)  into  which  he  promises  to  receive  them,f  the  "  city  which 
hath  foundations"  that  Abraham  looked  for.     (Heb.  xi.  10.) 

But  to  whom  is  the  task  of  separation  to  be  confided  ?  Here  I  can- 
not  consent  to  Olshausen's  view,  which  is  also  Vitringa's,  ij:  that  those 
who  cast  the  net,  and  those  who  discriminate  between  its  contents,  being, 
in  the  parable,  the  same  ;  therefore,  since  the  first  are  evidently  the  apos- 
tles and  their  successors,  now  become,  according  to  the  Lord's  promise, 
"  fishers  of  men,"  (Matt.  iv.  19  ;  Luke  v.  10 ;  Ezek.  xlvii.  10  ;  Jer. 
xvi.  16  ;  §)  so  the  last  must  be — not  the  angelic  ministers  of  God's  judg- 


*  From  this  image  is  to  be  explained  the  frequent  use  of  the  terms  £'|w,  and  (as 
here)  UlSiWeiv  Ut^-  The  Church  is  regarded  as  complete  in  itself,  with  the  line  of  its 
separation  from  the  sinful  /coct/ios  distinctly  drawn.  All  non-christians  then  are  those 
"  that  are  without,"  (ol  c^u,  Mark  iv.  11  ;  Col.  iv.  5  ;)  Christ  will  in  no  wise  cast  out 
(ui  nn  «/?dX(o  t'lto),  that  is  expel  from  this  holy  enclosure,  this  city  of  refuge,  those  that 
come  to  him.  (John  vi.  37.)  The  prince  of  this  world  shall  be  cast  out,  (John  xii. 
31,)  driven  forth  from  God's  redeemed  creation.  He  that  abideth  nbt  in  Christ,  is 
cast  forth,  or  cast  out,  as  a  branch,  (John  xv.  6,) — the  image  continuing  the  same  ;  as 
the  dead  vine  branches  are  flung  forth  from  the  vineyard  and  a  riddance  made  of  them, 
so  will  these  be  expelled  from  the  kingdom  of  God. 

t  Augustine  (Serm.  368,  c.  3)  :  Vascula  sunt  sanctorum  sedes,  et  beatse  vitae  mag- 
na secreta. 

X  Erklar.  d.  Parah.,  p.  351,  seq.    • 

§  This  last  reference  to  Jer.  xvi.  16,  will  only  hold  good,  supposing  we  connect  this 
verse  not  with  what  follows,  but  as  Jerome  does,  with  what  goes  before,  and  so  make  it 
not  a  threat,  but  a  promise  that  into  whatever  place  the  Lord's  people  have  been  scat- 
tered, from  thence  he  will  be  at  all  pains  to  recover  them.  In  that  fine  Orphic  hymn 
attributed  to  Clement  of  Alexandria,  (p.  312,  Potter's  ed.)     Christ  himself  is  addressed 


114  THE  DRAW  NET. 

ments,  but  the  same  messengers  of  the  Covenant,  and  as  such,  angels, 
to  whom,  being  equipped  with  divine  power,  the  task  of  judging  and  sun- 
dering should  be  committed.  No  doubt  the  Church,  in  its  progressive  de- 
velopment, is  always  thus  judging  and  separating  (1  Cor.  v.  4,  5 ;  Jude 
22,  23;)  putting  away  one  and  another  from  her  communion,  as  they 
openly  declare  themselves  unworthy  of  it.  But  she  does  not  count  that 
she  has  thus  cleansed  herself,  or  that  this  perfect  cleansing  can  be  effected 
by  any  power  which  now  she  wields.  There  must  be  a  judgment  and 
sundering  from  without,  and  of  this  the  final  separation,  every  where 
else  in  Scripture  we  find  the  angels  distinctly  named  as  the  execution- 
ers. (Matt.  xiii.  41  ;  xxiv.  31  ;  xxv.  31  ;  Rev.  xiv.  18,  19.)*  It  seems 
then  contrary  to  the  analogy  of  faith  to  interpret  the  present  passage  in 
any  other  manner. 

It  is  quite  true,  that  in  the  familiar  occurrence  which  supplies  the 
groundwork  of  the  parable,  the  same  who  carried  out  tlienet  would  na- 
turally also  draw  it  to  shore, — as  it  would  naturally  be  they  who  would 
also  inspect  its  contents,  for  the  purpose  of  selecting  the  good  and  cast- 
ing the  worthless  away  ;  but  it  is  pushing  this  circumstance,  which,  in 
fact,  is  the  weak  side  of  the  comparison,  too  far,  to  require  that  the  same 
should  also  hold  good  in  the  spiritual  thing  signified.  In  the  nearly  allied 
parable  of  the  Tares,  there  was  no  improbability  in  supposing  those  who 
watched  the  growth  of  the  crop  to  be  different  from  those  who  finally 
gathered  it  in  ;  and,  accordingly,  such  a  difference  is  marked  :  those  are 
the  servants,  these  are  the  reapers.  The  differenc3  could  not  be  marked 
in  the  same  way  here,  but  it  is  indicated,  though  lightly,  in  another  way. 
The  fishers  are  not  once  mentioned  by  name ;  the  imperfection  of  the 
human  illustration  to  set  forth  the  divine  truth,  is  kept,  as  far  as  may  be, 
out  of  sight,  by  the  whole  circumstance  being  told,  as  nearly  as  possible, 
impersonally.  And  when  the  Lord  himself  interprets  the  parable,  he 
passes  over,  without  a  word,  the  beginning  of  it  ;  thus  again  drawing 
away  attention  from  a  circumstance,  upon   which  to  dwell  might  need- 


as  the  chief  fisher  ;  and,  as  here,  the  world  is  the  great  sea  of  wickedness,  out  of  which 
the  saved,  the  holy  fish  are  drawn. 

'A.Xiev  jiepdiroiv  'X^^^  nyvovi 

ircXayoDf  Kaxia;  yXvKcp^  fojoT  ScXea^wv. 

*  Moreover  in  each  of  the  other  parables  of  judgment,  there  is  a  marked  distinction^ 
which  it  is  little  likely  should  have  been  here  renounced,  between  the  present  minis- 
ters of  the  kingdom,  and  the  future  executors  of  doom — in  the  Tares  between  the 
servants  and  the  reapers — in  the  Marriage  of  the  King's  Son  (Matt.  xxii.  3,  13),  be- 
tween the  servants  [SoiXoi)  and  attendants  (SiaKovoi),  in  the  Pounds  between  the  ser- 
vants and  those  that  stand  by  (oJ  KapccruTCi ,  Luke  xix.  25). 


THE  DRAW  NET.  116 

lessly  have  perplexed  his  hearers, — and  explains  only  the  latter  part, 
where  the  point  and  stress  of  it  lay  :  "  So  shall  it  be  at  the  end  of  the 
world  :  the  angels  shall  come  forth  and  sever  the  wicked  from  among  the 
just,  and  shall  cast  them  into  the  furnace  of  fire.'^*  Assuming  then  as 
we  may,  and  indeed  must,  the  angels  of  heaven  here  also  to  be  the  takers 
and  leavers,  we  may  find  an  emphasis  in  the  "  coming  forth"  which  is 
attributed  to  them.  Ever  since  the  first  constitution  of  the  Church  they 
have  been  hidden — withdrawn  from  men's  sight  for  so  long.  But  then 
at  that  great  epoch  of  the  kingdom,  they  shall  again  "  come  forth"  from 
before  the  throne  and  presence  of  God,  and  walk  up  and  down  among 
men,  the  visible  ministers  of  his  judgments. 

Though  the  parable,  as  was  observed  at  the  beginning,  at  first  sight 
appears  so  similar  to  that  of  the  Tares,  as  merely  to  teach  over  again 
the  same  truth,  yet  the  moral  of  it,  in  fact,  is  very  different.  It  is  need- 
less to  re-state  the  purpose  of  that ;  but  the  moral  of  this  is  clearly,  that 
we  be  not  content  with  being  enclosed  within  the  Gospel-net, — that 
"  they  are  not  all  Israel,  who  are  of  Israel," — but  that,  in  the  "great 
house"  of  the  Church,  "there  are  not  only  vessels  of  gold  and  silver, 
but  of  wood  and  of  earth,  and  some  to  honour,  and  some  to  dishonour  ;" 
that  each  of  us  therefore  seek  to  be  "  a  vessel  unto  honour,  sanctified 
and  meet  for  the  master's  use ;"  (2  Tim.  ii.  20,  21  ;)  since  in  the  midst 
of  all  the  confusions  of  the  visible  Church,  "the  Lord  knoweth  them 
that  are  his,"  and  will  one  day  bring  the  confusion  to  an  end,  separating, 
and  for  ever,  the  precious  from  the  vile — the  true  kernel  of  humanity 
from  the  husk  in  which  for  a  while  it  was  enveloped. 

Having  arrived  at  the  conclusion  of  these  seven  parables,  the  present 
will  be  a  fit  opportunity  for  saying  a  few  words  concerning  their  mutual 
relation  to  one  another,  and  how  far  they  constitute  a  complete  whole. 
The  mystical  number  seven  has  offered  to  many  interpreters  a  tempta- 
tion too  strong  to  be  resisted  for  the  seeking  in  them  some  hidden  mys- 
tery ;  and  when  the  seven  petitions  of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  the  names 
of  the  seven  original  deacons,  (Acts  vi.  5,)  have  been  turned  into  pro- 
phecy of  seven  successive  states  of  the  Church,  not  to  speak  of  the  seven 
Apocalyptic  Epistles,  (Rev.  ii.  iii.,)  it  was  scarcely  to  be  expected  that 
these  seven  parables  should  have  escaped  being  made  prophetic  of 
the  same. 

They  have  been,  in  fact,  so  often  thus  dealt  with  as  prophecy,  that 
a  late  ingenious  writer*  needed  not  to  have  apologized  for  making  an 

*  Chrysostom  well  calls  the  parable  with  reference  to  this  verse,  fo^epav  napa0o\fji , 
and  Gregory  the  Great  pays  of  the  same  {Horn.  11.  in  Evang.),  Timendum  est  potiCis 
quam  exponendum. 

t  Alex.  Knox,  in  his  Eemains,  v.  1,  p.  408. 


116  THE  DRAW  NET. 

attempt  of  the  kind,  as  though  it  were  something  ahogether  novel  and 
unheard  of.  Having  offered  his  apologies,  he  proceeds  :  "  It  is  my  per- 
suasion that  the  parables  in  this  chapter  are  not  to  be  considered  dis- 
jointedly,  but  to  be  taken  together  as  a  connected  series,  indicating,  pro- 
gressively,  the  several  stages  of  advancement  through  which  the  mysti- 
cal kingdom  of  Christ,  upon  earth,  was  to  proceed,  from  its  commence- 
ment to  its  consummation.  ...  It  will  be  understood,  then,  that  each 
parable  has  a  period  peculiarly  its  own,  in  which  the  state  of  things,  so 
signified,  predominates ;  but  when  another  state  of  things  commences, 
the  former  does  not  cease.  It  only  becomes  less  prominent ;  operative 
as  really  as  ever,  but  in  a  way  subsidiary  to  that  which  now  takes  the 
lead.  It  will  follow  that  each  succeeding  stage  implies  a  virtual  com- 
bination of  all  that  has  gone  before,  and,  of  course,  the  grand  concluding 
scene  will  contain  the  sublimated  spirit  and  extracted  essence  of  the 
whole."  Bengel  announces  the  same  tlieory,*  and  applies  it  thus:  the 
first  parable,  he  affirms,  refers  to  the  times  of  Christ  and  his  immediate 
apostles,  when  was  the  original  sowing  of  the  word  of  eternal  life.  The 
second,  that  of  the  Tares,  to  the  age  immediately  following,  when  watch- 
fulness against  false  doctrine  began  to  diminish,  and  heresies  to  abound. 
The  third,  that  of  the  Mustard  Seed,  to  the  time  of  Constantine,  when 
the  Church,  instead  of  even  seeming  to  need  support,  evidently  gave  it, 
and  the  great  ones  of  the  earth  came  under  its  shadow  and  protection. 
The  fourth,  that  of  the  Leaven,  refers  to  the  propagation  of  true  religion 
through  the  whole  world.  The  fifth,  of  the  Hid  Treasure,  to  the  more 
hidden  state  of  the  Church,  signified  in  the  Apocalypse  (xii.  6)  by  the 
woman  flying  into  the  wilderness.  The  sixth,  that  of  the  Pearl,  to  the 
glorious  time  when  the  kingdom  shall  be  esteemed  above  all  things, 
Satan  being  being  bound.  The  seventh,  of  the  Draw  Net,  details  the 
ultimate  confusion,  separation,  and  judgment.  Any  one  who  will  take 
the  trouble  to  compare  the  two  schemes  with  one  another,  will  be  in- 
duced to  suspect  how  merely  capricious  they  both  must  be,  when  he 
notes  the  considerable  differences  that  exist  between  tlicm.  They  have 
two  out  of  the  seven,  the  fifth,  and  the  sixth,  altogether  ditlerent. 

Yet  though  not  thus  historico-prophetical,  these   parables  were  in  a 
certain  sense  prophetical,  for  they  foretold  things  that  were   to  come  to 

Praeter  communes  et  pcrpetuas  regni  caclorum  sive  Ecclesiae  rationes,  convcniunt 
hee  septem  paraboloe,  reconditissimum  habentes  sensum,  etiam  in  perioilos  et  jEtates 
Ecclesiae  diversas,  ita  quidem  ut  alia  post  aliam  in  complemento  incipiat,  non  tamen 
prior  quaelibet  ante  initium  sequenlis  exeat.  An  essay  which  I  know  only  by  name, 
Reuss  :  Meletema  de  sensu  septem  Parab.,  Matih.  xiii.  prophetico,  Haun.  1733,  must 
no  doubt  be  an  exposition  of  the  same  theory.  See  against  it  Marckius,  Syll.  Dissert. 
Exerc.  4. 


THE  UNMERCIFUL  SERVANT.  HJ 

pass  ;  only  it  was  not  the  Lords's  main  purpose  in  uttering  them  to  ac- 
quaint  his  servants  with  the  future  destinies  of  his  Church,  but  rather  to 
give  them  practical  rules  and  warnings  for  their  conduct.  So,  too, 
doubtless  the  seven  have  a  certain  unity,  succeeding  one  another  in  natu- 
ral order,  and  having  a  completeness  in  themselves  : — thus  in  the  Sower 
are  set  forth  the  causes  of  the  failures  and  success  which  the  word  of 
the  Gospel  meets,  when  it  is  preached  in  the  world.  In  the  Tares,  the  ob- 
stacles to  the  internal  development  of  Christ's  kingdom,  even  after  a 
Church  has  been  hedged  in  and  fenced  round  from  the  world,  are  de- 
clared and  are  traced  up  to  their  true  author,  with  a  warning  against 
the  manner  in  which  men  might  be  tempted  to  remove  those  obstacles. 
The  Mustard  Seed  and  the  Leaven  declare  the  victorious  might, — the 
first,  the  outward,  and  the  second,  the  inward  might  of  that  kingdom  ; 
and  therefore  implicitly  prophesy  of  its  development  in  spite  of  all  these 
obstacles,  and  its  triumph  over  them.  As  these  two  are  objective  and 
general,  so  the  two  which  follow  are  subjective  and  individual,  declar- 
ing the  relation  of  the  kingdom  to  every  man,  its  supreme  worth,  and 
how  those  who  have  discovered  that  worth  will  be  willing  to  renounce 
all  things  for  its  sake  ;  they  have  besides  mutual  relations  already  touch- 
ed on,  and  complete  one  another.  This  last  is  the  declaration,  how  that 
entire  separation  from  evil,  which  in  the  second  we  saw  that  men  miwht 
be  tempted  to  anticipate  by  unpermitted  means,  shall  yet  come  to  pass, 
— that  separation  which  it  is  righteous  to  long  for  in  God's  own  time, 
but  wrong  by  self-willed  efforts  prematurely  to  anticipate  ; — and  lookino- 
forward  to  which,  each  is  to  strive  that  he  may  so  use  the  present  priv- 
ileges and  means  of  grace,  which  the  communion  of  the  Church  affords 
him,  that  he  may  be  found  among  those  that  shall  be  the  Lord's  when 
he  shall  put  away  all  the  ungodly  like  dross,  when  he  shall  set  a  differ- 
ence between  them  who  serve  him,  and  them  who  serve  him  not. 


PARABLE  VIII. 


THE    UNMERCIFUL   SERVANT. 

Matthew  xviii.  23 — 35. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  discourse  going  before,  to  lead  immediately  to 
the  question  of  Peter's,  in  answer  to  which  this  parable  was  spoken  ; 
while,  at  the  same  time,  the  words,  "  Then  came  Peter,"  seem  to  mark 


X18  THE  UNMERCIFUL  SERVANT. 

that  the  connection  is  unbroken.  It  may  perhaps  be  thus  traced : 
Peter  must  have  felt  in  his  Lord's  injunctions  concerning  the  manner  of 
dealing  with  an  offending  brother,  (ver.  15-17,)  that  the  forgiveness 
of  his  fault  was  necessarily  implied  as  having  already  taken  place ; 
since,  till  we  had  forgiven,  we  could  not  be  in  the  condition  to  deal  with 
him  thus;  for  this  dealing,  even  to  the  exclusion  of  him  from  Church- 
fellowship,  is  entirely  a  dealing  in  love,  (2  Thess.  iii.  14,  15,)  and  with 
a  view  to  his  recovery,  (See  Sirac  xix.  13-17.)  Nor  does  it  mean, 
as  we  might  be  too  much  inclined  to  understand  it,  that  after  the  failure 
of  these  repeated  attempts  to  win  him  to  a  better  mind,  we  should  even 
then  be  justified  in  feeling  strangeness  towards  him  in  our  hearts  ;*  for 
compare  the  whole  course  of  St.  Paul's  injunctions  concerning  the 
offender  in  the  Corinthian  church.  Were  that  too  the  meaning,  the  ex- 
ercise of  the  law  of  love  would  then  be  limited  to  three  times  ;  (see  ver. 
15-17  ;)  and  that  in  opposition  to  what  immediately  follows,  where  it 
is  extended  to  seventy  times  seven. f  Chrysostom  observes,  that  when 
Peter  instanced  seven,  as  the  number  of  times  that  an  offending  brother 
should  be  forgiven,  he  accounted  certainly  that  he  was  doing  some  great 
thing, — that  his  charity  was  taking  a  large  stretch,  these  seven  being 
four  times  more  than  the  Jewish  masters  enjoined.:}:  He  increased  the 
number  of  times  with  the  feeling,  no  doubt,  that  the  spirit  of  the  new 
law  of  love  which  Christ  had  brought  into  the  world, — a  law  larger, 
freer,  more  long-suffering,  than   the  old, — required  this.§     There  was 

*  As  neither,  on  the  other  hand,  does  the  command  to  forgive  till  seventy  times 
seven  exclude  a  dealing,  if  need  be,  of  severity,  provided  always  it  be  a  dealing  in  love. 
Thus  Augustine  (Serm.  83,  c.  7) :  Si  per  caritatem  imponitur  disciplina,  de  corde  len- 
itas  non  recedat.  Quid  enim  tam  pium  quani  medicus  ferens  ferramentuni?  Plorat 
secandus,  et  secalur  :  plorat  urendus,  et  uritur.  Non  est  ilia  crudelitas,  absit  ut  ssevi- 
tia  medici  dicatur.  Sa3vit  in  vulnus,  ut  homo  sanetur,  quia  si  vulnus  palpetur,  homo 
perditur.     Cf.  Serm.  211. 

t  Our  Lord's  "  seventy  times  seven"  of  forgiveness  makes  a  wonderful  contrast, 
which  has  not  escaped  the  notice  of  St.  Jerome  (v.  2,  p.  565,  edit.  Bened.)  to  La- 
mech's,  the  antediluvian  Antichrist's,  seventy  and  seven-fold  of  revenge.  (Gen.  iv.  24.) 
'EPSojjTfKoi/TdKii  trrni  is  not,  as  Origen  and  some  others  understand  it,  70  -[-  7  =  77  ;  for 
that  would  be  rather  ifiiofjii^KovTa  JirroKif,  but  70  x  7  =  490. 

t  They  grounded  the  duty  of  forgiving  three  times  and  not  more,  on  Amos  i.  3 : 
ii.  f) ;  also  on  Job  x.\xiii.  29,  30 ;  at  this  last  passage  see  the  marginal  translation. 
(Lightfoot's  Hor.  Ileh.,  in  loc.) 

§  While  this  is  true,  there  were  yet  deeper  motives  for  his  selection  of  the  number 
seven.  It  is  the  number  in  the  divine  law  with  which  the  idea  of  remission  (Hipcais) 
was  ever  linked.  The  seven  times  seventh  year  was  the  year  of  jubilee  (troi  rns  d^iatui). 
Lev.  XXV.  28 ;  cf  iv.  6,  17  ;  xvi.  14.  15.  It  is  true  that  we  find  it  as  the  number  of 
punishment  or  retribution  for  evil  also;  (Gen.  iv.  15;  Lev.  xxvi.  18,21,24,28;  Deut. 
xxviii.  25  ;   Ps.  Ixxix.  12  ;   Prov.  vi.  31  ;    Dan.  iv.  16  ;   Rev.  xv.  1  ;)   yet  this  should 


THE  UNMERCIFUL  SERVANT.  119 

then  in  Peter's  mind  a  consciousness  of  this  new  law  of  love, — though 
an  obscure  one,  since  he  supposed  it  possible  that  love  could  ever  be 
overcome  by  hate,  good  by  evil.  But  there  was,  at  the  same  time,  a 
fundamental  error  in  the  question  itself,  for  in  proposing  a  limit  beyond 
which  forgiveness  should  not  extend,  there  was  evidently  implied  the 
notion,  that  a  man  in  forgiving,  gave  up  a  right  which  he  might,  under 
certain  circumstances,  exercise.  The  purpose  of  our  Lord's  answer, — 
in  other  words,  of  the  parable, — is  to  make  clear  that  when  God  calls 
on  a  member  of  his  kingdom  to  forgive,  he  does  not  call  on  him  to  re- 
nounce a  right,  but  that  he  has  now  no  right  to  exercise  in  the  matter  : 
asking  for  and  accepting  forgiveness,  he  has  implicitly  pledged  himself 
to  show  it ;  and  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  how  any  amount  of  didactic 
instruction  could  have  conveyed  this  truth  with  at  all  the  force  and  con- 
viction  of  the  following  parable. 

"  Therefore,"  to  the  end  that  you  may  understand  what  I  say  the 
better,  "  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven  likened  unto  a  certain  king,  which 
would  take  account  of  his  servants."  This  is  the  first  of  the  parables  in 
which  God  appears  in  his  character  of  King.  We  are  the  servants 
with  whom  he  takes  account.  Yet  this  is  not,  as  is  plain,  the  fnal 
reckoning,  not  identical  with  that  of  Matt.  xxv.  19  ;  2  Cor.  v.  10;  but 
rather  such  a  reckoning  as  that  of  Luke  xvi.  2.  To  this  he  brings  us 
by  the  preaching  of  the  law, — by  the  setting  of  our  sins  before  our  face, 
— by  awakening  and  alarming  our  conscience  that  was  asleep  before, — 
by  bringing  us  into  adversities, — by  casting  us  into  perils  of  death,  so 
that  we  seem  to  see  it  near  before  us ;  (2  Kin.  xx.  4  ;)  he  takes  account 
with  us  when  he  makes  us  feel  that  we  could  not  answer  him  one  thing 
in  a  thousand, — that  our  trespasses  are  more  than  the  hairs  of  our  heads ; 
when  through  one  means  or  another  he  brings  our  careless  carnal  secu- 
rity to  an  utter  end.  (Ps.  1.  21.)  Thus  David  was  summoned  before 
God  by  the  word  of  Nathan  the  prophet  (2  Sam.  xii.) ;  thus  the  Nine- 
vites  by  the  preaching  of  Jonah,  thus  the  Jews  by  John  the  Baptist. 

"  And  when  he  had  begun  to  reckon,  one  was  brought  unto  him  which 
owed  him  ten  thousand  talents  ;"  he  had  not  to  go  far,  before  he  lighted 
on  this  one  ;  he  had  only  "  begun  to  reckon."  This  perhaps  was  the 
first  into  whose  accounts  he  looked  ;  there  may  have  been  others  with 

not  disturb  or  perplex,  rather  confirm  us  in  this  view,  since  there  lies  ever  in  punish- 
ment the  idea  of  restoration  of  disturbed  relations,  and  so  of  forgiveness.  (Ezek.  xvi.  42.) 
It  is  the  storm  which  violently  restores  the  disturbed  equilibrium  of  the  moral  atmos- 
phere. Gregory  of  Nyssa  then  has  a  true  insight  into  the  reason  why  Peter  should 
have  named  seven  times,  when  he  observes  {0pp.,  v.  1,  p.  159) :  Hapernpriaei'  !>  Ilfrpot, 
Srt  Kavuv  irapaSdacios  dpy(^aios  lari,  t6v  l^do^aia  E/i^ao-ii'  t')(tiv  tipo;  d^tuttoj  aixapTriiiirdJi/,  uva- 
Travaeus  TtXtt'of,  ov  ariixcTov  to  aa0l3aT6v  c^tiv,  h  'e,li66^r\  ftjxcpa  dird  yeviccus. 


120  THE  UNMERCIFUL  SERVANT. 

yet  larger  debts  behind.  This  one  "  was  brought  unto  him,"  he  never 
would  have  come  of  himself;  far  more  likely  he  would  have  made  that 
ten  into  twenty  thousand  ;  for  the  secure  sinner  goes  on  treasuring  up 
(Rom.  ii.  5)  an  ever  mightier  sum,  to  be  one  day  required  of  him. 
The  sum  here  is  immense,  whatever  talents  we  suppose  these  to  have 
been,  though  it  would  differ  very  much  in  amount,  according  to  the 
talent  which  we  assumed ;  if,  indeed,  the  Hebrew,  it  would  then  be  a 
sum  perfectly  enormous  ;*  yet  only  therefore  the  fitter  to  express  the 
greatness  of  every  man's  transgression  in  thought,  word,  and  deed, 
against  his  God. 

In  the  case  before  us,  the  immensity  of  the  sum  may  be  best  ex- 
plained  by  supposing  the  defaulter  to  have  been  one  of  the  chief  ser- 
vants of  the  king,  a  farmer  or  administrator  of  the  royal  revenues  ;"]■  or 
seeing  that  in  the  despotisms  of  the  East,  every  individual,  from  the 
highest  to  the  lowest,  stands  in  an  absolutely  servile  relation  to  the  mon- 
arch, is  in  fact  his  servant  or  slave,  there  is  nothing  in  that  name  to 
hinder  us  from  supposing  him  to  be  one,  to  whom  some  chief  post  of 
honour  and  dignity  in  the  kingdom  had  been  committed, — a  satrap  who 
should  have  remitted  the  revenues  of  his  province  to  the  royal  treasury. | 

*  How  great  a  sum  it  was,  we  can  most  vividly  realize  to  ourselves  by  comparing 
it  with  other  sums  of  which  mention  is  made  in  Scripture.  In  the  construction  of  the 
tabernacle,  twenty-nine  talents  of  gold  were  used  ;  (Exod.  xxxviii.  24  ;)  David  prepar- 
ed for  the  temple  three  thousand  talents  of  gold,  and  the  princes  five  thousand  ;  (1 
Chron.  xxix.  4-7  ;)  the  queen  of  Sheba  presented  to  Solomon,  as  a  royal  gift,  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  talents ;  (1  Kin.  x.  10;)  the  king  of  Assyria  laid  upon  Hezekiah 
thirty  talents  of  gold  ;  (2  Kin.  xviii.  14 ;)  and  in  the  extreme  impoverishment  to  which 
the  land  was  brought  at  the  last,  one  talent  of  gold  was  laid  upon  it,  after  the  death  of 
Josiah,  by  the  king  of  Egypt.     (2  Chron.  xxxvi.  3.) 

t  In  the  Jewish  parable  (Schoettgen's  Hor.  Heb.  v.  1,  p.  155),  which  bears  re- 
semblance to  that  before  us,  in  so  far  as  the  sins  of  men  are  there  represented  under  the 
image  of  enormous  debt,  which  it  is  impossible  to  pay — it  is  the  tribute  due  from  an 
entire  city,  which  is  owing  to  the  king,  and  which,  at  the  entreaty  of  the  inhabitants, 
he  remits. 

t  According  to  Plutarch,  {Eeg.  et  Imp.  Apothegm.,)  it  was  exactly  this  sum  of 
ten  thousand  talents  with  which  Darius  sought  to  buy  off  Alexander,  that  he  should 
not  prosecute  his  conquests  in  Asia  ; — as  also  the  payment  of  the  same  sum  was  im- 
posed by  the  Romans,  on  Antiochus  the  Great,  after  his  defeat  by  them :  and  when 
Alexander,  at  Susa,  paid  the  debts  of  the  whole  Macedonian  army,  they  amounted  to 
only  twice  this  sum,  though  every  motive  was  at  work  to  enhance  the  amount.  (See 
Droysen's  Gesch.  Alexanders,  p.  500.)  Von  Bohlen  (Das  Alt.  Ind.,\.  2,  p.  119) 
gives  some  curious  and  almost  incredible  notices  of  the  quantities  of  gold  in  the  East. 
— I  do  not  know  whether  the  immensity  of  the  sum  may  partly  have  moved  Origen 
to  his  strange  supposition,  that  it  can  only  be  the  man  of  sin  (2  Thes.  ii.)  that  is  here 
indicated,  or  stranger  still,  the  Devil !  Compare  Tuilo's  Cod.  Apocryphus,  v.  1,  p. 
887,  and  Neander's  Kirch.  Gesch.,  v.  5,  p.  1122. 


THE  UNMERCIFUL  SERVANT.  121 

This  is  far  more  probable  than  that  he  is  such  an  one  as  those  servants 
in  the  parable  of  the  Talents,  to  whom  monies  were  committed  that 
they  might  trade  with  them  :  the  greatness  of  the  debt  renders  such  a 
supposition  very  unlikely.  Nor  would  the  sale  of  the  defaulter,  with 
the  confiscation  of  all  his  goods,  have  gone  far  to  pay  such  a  debt,  un- 
less he  had  been  one  living  in  great  splendour  and  pomp  ;  though,  it  is 
true,  the  words  of  the  original  do  not  imply  that  the  king  expected  the 
debt  to  be  discharged  with  the  proceeds  of  the  sale,  but  that  whatever 
those  proceeds  were,  they  were  to  be  rendered  into  his  treasury.  M 

The  sale  of  the  debtor's  wife  and  children, — for  the  king  commanded 
them  to  be  sold  with  him, — rested  upon  the  theory  that  they  were  a  part 
of  his  property.  Thus,  according  to  Roman  law,  the  children  being 
part  of  the  property  of  the  father,  they  were  sold  into  slavery  with  him. 
That  it  was  allowed  under  the  Mosaic  law  to  sell  an  insolvent  debtor,  is 
implicitly  stated.  Lev.  xxv.  39  ;  and  ver.  41,  makes  it  probable  that  his 
family  also  came  into  bondage  with  him ;  and  we  find  allusion  to  the 
same  custom  in  other  places.  (2  Kin.  iv.  1  ;  Neh.  v.  6  ;  Isai.  1. 1  ,•  Iviii. 
6  ;  Jer.  xxxiv.  8-11 ;  Amos  ii.  6  ;  viii.  6.)  Michaelis  *  states  that  the 
later  Jewish  doctors  declared  against  it,  except  in  cases  where  a  thief 
should  be  sold  to  make  good  the  damage  which  he  had  done,  and  is  in- 
clined  to  think  that  there  was  no  such  practice  among  the  Jews  in  our 
Lord's  time,  but  that  this  dealing  with  the  servant  is  borrowed  from  the 
practice  of  neighbouring  countries.  There  is  much  to  make  this  pro- 
bable :  it  is  certain  that  the  imprisoning  of  a  debtor,  which  also  we  twice 
meet  with  in  this  parable,  (ver.  30,  34,)  formed  no  part  of  the  Jewish 
law  ;  indeed,  where  the  creditor  possessed  the  power  of  selling  him  into 
bondage,  it  would  have  been  totally  superfluous.  "  The  Tormentors'^ 
also,  (ver.  34,)  those  who  make  inquisition  by  torture,  have  a  foreign  ap- 
pearance, and  would  incline  us  to  look  for  the  locality  of  the  parable  else- 
where than  in  Judea. — For  the  spiritual  significance,  God  may  be  said 
to  sell  those,  whom  he  altogether  alienates  from  himself,  rejects,  and  de- 
livers for  ever  into  the  power  of  another.  By  the  selling  here  may  be 
indicated  such  "  everlasting  destruction  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord 
and  the  glory  of  his  power."  Compare  Ps.  xliv.  12,  "  Thou  sellest  thy 
people  for  nought." 

The  servant,  hearing  the  dreadful  doom  pronounced  against  him  by 
his  lord,  betakes  himself  to  supplication,  the  one  resource  that  remains 
to  him  ;  he  ^'fell  down  and  worshipped  him.''  The  formal  act  of  wor- 
ship, or  adoration,  consisted  in  prostration  on  the  ground,  and  kissing  of 
the  feet  and  knees  j  and  here  Origen  bids  us  to  note  the  nice  observance 

*  Mos.  Recht.,  v.  3,  p.  58-60. 
9 


122  THE  UNMERCIFUL  SERVANT. 

of  proprieties  in  the  details  of  the  parable.  This  servant  "  worshipped  " 
the  king,  for  that  honour  was  paid  to  royal  personages  ;  but  it  is  not  said 
that  the  other  servant  worshipped,  he  only  "  besought,^'  his  fellow-ser- 
vant. His  words,  "  Lord,  have  patience  with  me,  and  I  will  pay  thee  all," 
are  characteristic  of  the  extreme  fear  and  anguish  of  the  moment,  which 
made  him  ready  to  promise  impossible  things,  even  mountains  of  gold, 
if  only  he  might  be  delivered  from  the  present  danger.  When  words 
of  a  like  kind  find  utterance  from  the  lips  of  the  sinner,  now  first  con- 
vinced of  his  sin,  they  show  that  he  has  not  yet  attained  to  a  full  insight 
into  his  relations  with  his  God — that  he  has  yet  much  to  learn  ;  as  namely 
this — that  no  future  obedience  can  make  up  for  past  disobedience  ;  since 
that  future  God  claims  as  his  right,  as  only  his  due  :  it  could  not  then, 
even  were  it  perfect,  which  it  will  prove  far  from  being,  make  compensa- 
tion for  the  past.  We  may  hear  then  in  the  words,  the  voice  of  self- 
righteousness,  imagining  that,  if  only  time  were  allowed,  it  could  make 
good  all  the  shortcomings  of  the  past.  The  words  are  exceedingly  im- 
portant, as  very  much  explaining  to  us  the  later  conduct  of  this  man.  It 
is  clear  that  he  had  never  come  to  a  true  recognition  of  the  immensity  of 
his  debt.  Little,  in  the  subjective  measure  of  his  own  estimate,  was 
forgiven  him,  and  therefore  he  loved  little,  or  not  at  all.  It  is  true  that 
by  his  demeanour  and  his  cry  he  did  recognize  his  indebtedness,  else 
would  thei'e  have  been  no  setting  of  him  free  :  and  he  might  have  gone 
on,  and  had  he  been  true  to  his  own  mercies,  he  would  have  gone  on, 
to  an  ever  fuller  recognition  of  the  grace  shown  him  :  but  as  it  was,  in 
a  little  while  he  lost  sight  of  it  altogether. 

However,  at  the  earnestnestness  of  his  present  prayer  "  the  lord  of 
that  servant  was  moved  loith  compassion,  and  loosed  him,  andforgave  him 
the  debt."  The  severity  of  God  only  endures  till  the  sinner  is  brought 
to  recognize  his  guilt,  it  is  indeed,  like  Joseph's  harshness  with  his  bre- 
thren, nothing  more  than  love  in  disguise  ; — and  having  done  its  work, 
having  brought  him  to  the  acknowledgment  of  his  guilt  and  misery,  re- 
appears as  grace  again,  granting  him  more  than  even  he  had  dared  to 
ask  or  to  hope,  loosing  the  bands  of  his  sins  and  letting  him  go  free. 
His  lord  "forgave  him  the  debt,"*  a.nd  thus  this  very  reckoning  with  him, 

*  Compare  Chardin  {Voy.  en  Perse,  Langles' ed.,  v.  5,  p.  285)  :  Toute  disgrace 
en  Perse  emporle  infalliblement  avec  soi  la  confiscation  des  biens,  et  c'est  un  reverse 
prodigieux  et  epouvantable  que  ce  changement  de  fortune,  car  un  honime  se  trouve 
denue  en  un  instant  si  entierement  qn'il  n'a  rien  a  lui.  On  lui  ote  ses  biens,  ses  es- 
claves,  et  quelquefois  jusqu'a  sa  femme  et  ses  enfans  .  .  .  Son  sort  s'adoucit  dans  la 
suite.  Le  roi  declare  sa  volontc  sur  son  sujet.  On  lui  rend  presque  toujours  sa  fam- 
ille,  partie  de  ses  esclaves,  et  ses  meubles,  et  assez  souvent  il  revient  au  bout  d'un 
temps  a  etre  retabli  dans  les  bonnes  graces  de  la  cour,  et  a  rentrer  dansles  emploia. 


THE  UNMERCIFUL  SERVANT.  123 

which  at  first  threatened  him  with  irremediable  ruin,  might  have  been 
the  chiefest  mercy  of  all  ;  bringing  indeed  his  debt  to  a  head,  but  only 
so  bringing  it,  that  it  might  be  put  away.  So  is  it  evermore  with  men. 
There  cannot  be  a  forgiving  in  the  dark.  God  will  forgive  ;  but  he  will 
have  the  sinner  to  know  what  and  how  much  he  is  forgiven  ;  he  sum- 
mons him  with  that  "  Come  now  and  let  us  reason  together,"  before  the 
scarlet  is  made  white.  (Isai.  i.  18.)  The  sinner  shall  have  the  sentence 
of  death  in  him  first,  for  only  so  will  the  words  of  life  and  pardon  have 
any  true  meaning  for  him. 

But  he  to  whom  this  mercy  was  shown  did  not  receive  it  aright  5 
(Wisd.  xii.  19  ;)  too  soon  he  forgot  it,  and  showed  that  he  had  forgotten 
it  by  his  conduct  towards  his  fellow-servant.  For  going  out  from  the  pre- 
sence of  his  lord,  he  found,  immediately  after,  as  would  seem,  and  when 
the  sense  of  liis  lord's  goodness  should  have  been  yet  fresh  upon  him, 
"  one  of  Ids  fellow-servants  lolio  oiced  hhn  an  hundred  pence."  How  striking 
and  instructive  is  that  word  '■^  going  out''' — slight  as  it  seems,  yet  one  of 
the  key- words  of  the  parable.  For  how  is  it  that  we  are  ever  in  danger 
of  acting  as  this  servant  ?  Because  we  "go  out"  of  the  presence  of  our 
God  ;  because  we  do  not  ahide  there,  with  an  ever-lively  sense  of  the 
greatness  of  our  sin,  and  the  greatness  of  his  forgiveness.  By  the  ser- 
vant's going  out  is  expressed  the  sinner's  forgetfulness  of  the  greatness 
of  the  benefits  which  he  has  received  from  his  God.*  The  term  '■^fel- 
low-servant" here  does  not  imply  any  equality  of  rank  between  these 
two,  or  that  they  filled  similar  offices ;  f  but  indicates  that  they  stood 
both  in  the  same  relation  of  servants  to  a  common  lord.  And  the  sum 
is  so  small,  one  hundred  pence, — as  the  other  was  so  large,  ten  thousand 
talents, — to  show  how  little  man  can  offend  against  his  brother,  compared 
with  the  amount  in  which  every  man  has  offended  against  God,  %  so  that, 
in  Chrysostom's  words,  these  offences  to  those  are  as  a  drop  of  water  to 
the  boundless  ocean.  § 

The  whole  demeanour  of  the  man  in  regard  of  his  fellow-servant  is 
graphically  described ;  "  He  laid    hands  on  him,   and  look  Iwn  hy  the 

*    Theophylact :    Oih\i  yap  h  tw  Qeij  ^ivwv,  davinraOfii' 

t  Such  would  have  been  biinSovXos,  this  is  (riJi-^ouXos. 

X  The  Hebrew  talent  =:  300  shekels.  (Exod.  xxxviii.  25,  26.)  Assuming  this,  the 
proportion  of  the  two  debts  would  be  as  follows : 

10000  talents  :  100  pence  ::  1250000  :  1. 
that  is,  one  million  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  to  one. 

§  Melancthon :  Ideo  autem  tanta  summa  ponitur,  ut  sciamus  nos  valde  multa  et 
magna  peccata  habere  coram  Deo.  Sicut  facile  invenies  multa,  si  vitam  tuam  aspicies ; 
magna  est  securitas  carnalis,  magna  negligentia  in  invocatione,  magna  diffidentia,  et 
multaj  dubitationes  de  Deo.     Item  vagantur  sine  fine  cupiditates  varise. 


124  THE  UNMERCIFUL  SERVANT. 

throat*  saying,  Pay  me  that  thou  owest."  When  some  press  the  word 
in  the  original,  and  find  therein  an  aggravation  of  this  servant's  harsh- 
ness and  cruelty,  as  though  he  was  not  even  sure  whether  the  debt  were 
owing  or  not,f  this  is  on  every  ground  to  be  rejected.  That  the  debt 
was  owing  is  plainly  declared  ; — he  found  a  fellow-servant  "  who  owed 
him  an  hundred  pence  ;"  and  the  very  point  of  the  whole  parable  would 
be  lost  by  the  supposition  that  we  had  here  an  oppressor  or  extortioner 
of  the  common  sort.  In  that  case  it  would  not  have  needed  to  speak  a 
parable  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ;  the  law  would  have  condemned  such 
a  one  ;  but  here  we  have  a  far  deeper  lore — namely  this,  that  it  is  not 
always  right,  but  often  most  wrong,  the  most  opposite  to  right,  to  press 
our  rights,  thatinthe  king  dom  of  grace,  the  summum  jus  may  be  indeed 
the  summa  injuria.  This  man  was  one  who  would  fain  be  measured  to 
by  God  in  one  measure,  while  he  measured  to  his  brethren  in  another. 
But  this  may  not  be  ;  each  man  must  take  his  choice  ;  he  may  dwell  in 
the  kingdom  of  grace ;  but  then,  receiving  grace,  he  must  show  grace  ; 
finding  love,  he  must  exercise  love.  If  on  the  contrary  he  exacts  the 
uttermost,  pushes  his  rights  as  far  as  they  will  go,  he  must  look  to  have 
the  uttermost  exacted  from  him,  and  in  the  measure  that  he  has  meted 
to  have  it  measured  back  to  him  again. — It  was  in  vain  that  ''his  fellow- 
servant  fell  down  at  his  feet,  and  besought  him,"  using  exactly  the  same 
words  of  intreaty  which  he,  in  the  agony  of  his  distress,  had  used,  and 
using  had  found  mercy  :  he  continued  inexorable  ;  he  "  went,"  that  is, 
departed,  dragging  the  other  with  him  till  he  could  consign  him  into 
the  safe  keeping  of  the  jailor;  and  thus  in  the  words  of  St.  Chrysostom, 
he  refused  "  to  recognize  the  port  in  which  he  had  himself  so  lately  es- 
caped shipwreck  ;"  but  delivered  over  his  fellow-servant  to  the  extreme 
severity  of  the  law,  unconscious  that  he  was  condemning  himself,  and 
revoking  his  own  mercy. 

But  such  is  man,  so  hard-hearted  and  cruel,  when  he  walks  otherwise 
than  in  a  constant  sense  of  forgiveness  received  from  God  ;  ignorance 
or  forgetfulness  of  his  own  guilt  makes  him  harsh,  unforgiving,  and  cru- 
el to  others  ;  or  if  by  chance  he  is  not  so,  he  is  only  hindered  from  being 
so  by  the  weak  defences  of  natural  character,  which  may  at  any  mo- 
ment be  broken  down.     The  man  who  knows  not  his  own  guilt,  is  ever 


•  Erasmus:  'En^viyey,  obtorto  collo  trahebat, .  .  .  pertinetadvi  tralientem  vel  in  car- 
cerem,  vel  in  judicem. 

t  The  ti  Ti  i(pci\cii,  which  reading,  as  the  more  difficult,  is  to  be  preferred  to  5  n 
6ipci\eii,  and  which  is  retained  by  Lachmann,  does  not  imply  any  doubt  as  to  whether 
the  debt  were  really  due  or  no  ;  but  the  conditional  form  was  originally,  though  of 
course  not  here,  a  courteous  form  of  making  a  demand,  as  there  is  often  the  same 
courteous  use  of  IVuf . 


THE  UNMERCIFUL  SERVANT,  X25 

ready  to  exclaim,  as  David  in  the  time  of  his  worst  sin,  (2  Sam.  xii.  5,) 
''  The  man  that  hath  done  this  thing  shall  surely  die  ;"  to  be  as  extreme 
in  judging  others,  as  he  is  slack  in  judging  himself;  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  they  that  are  spiritual  to  whom  Paul  commits  the  restoring 
of  a  brother  who  should  be  "overtaken  in  a  fault ;"  (Gal.  vi.  1  ;)  and 
when  he  urges  on  Titus  the  duty  of  being  gentle,  and  showing  meekness 
unto  all  men,  he  adds,  (Tit.  iii.  3,)  "  For  we  ourselves  also  were  some- 
times foolish,  disobedient,  deceived,  serving  divers  lusts  and  pleasures." 
In  exact  harmony  with  this  view  is  that  passage,  (Matt.  i.  19,)  in  which 
it  is  said  that  Joseph,  "  being  ^just  man,"*  would  not  make  Mary  a  pub- 
lic example,  whom  yet  he  must  have  believed  to  have  done  him  griev- 
ous wrong.  It  is  just  in  man  to  be  humane, — to  be  humane  is  human  ; 
none  but  the  altogether  righteous  may  press  his  utmost  rights  ;  whether 
he  will  do  so  or  no  is  determined  by  altogether  different  considerations, 
but  he  has  not  that  to  hold  his  hand,  which  every  man  has,  even  the 
sense  of  his  own  proper  guilt.     (John  viii.  7-9.) 

But  not  in  heaven  only  is  there  indignation,  when  men  are  thus  mea- 
suring to  others  in  so  different  a  measure  from  that  which  has  been 
measured  to  them.  There  are  on  earth  also  those  who  have  learned 
what  is  the  meaning  of  the  mercy  which  the  sinner  finds,  and  the  obli- 
gations which  it  lays  on  him — and  who  grieve  over  all  the  lack  of  love 
and  lack  of  forbearance  which  they  behold  around  them :  "  When  his 
fellow-servants  saw  what  was  done,  they  were  very  sorry.''  They  were 
sorry — their  lord  (ver.  34)  was  wroth ;  to  them  grief,  to  him  anger,  is 
ascribed.  The  distinction  is  not  accidental,  nor  without  its  grounds.  In 
man,  the  sense  of  his  own  guilt,  the  deep  consciousness  that  whatever 
sin  he  sees  come  to  ripeness  in  another,  exists  in  its  germ  and  seed  in 
his  own  heart,  the  feeling  that  all  flesh  is  one,  and  that  the  sin  of  one 
calls  for  humiliation  from  all,  will  ever  cause  sorrow  to  be  the  predomi- 
nant feeling  in  his  heart,  when  the  spectacle  of  moral  evil  is  brought 
before  his  eyes ;  but  in  God  the  pure  hatred  of  sin,"j-  which  is,  indeed, 
his  love  of  holiness  at  its  negative  side,  finds  place.  Being  sorry,  they 
"  came  and  told  unto  their  Lord  all  that  was  done  ;"  even  as  the  righte- 

*  AiKatn;,  which  Chrysostom  makes  there  =  ^pnaTos,  l-msiKfu. 

t  On  the  language  of  Scripture,  attributing  anger,  repentance,  jealousy  to  God, 
there  are  some  very  valuable  remarks  in  Augnstine's  reply  to  the  cavils  of  a  Manichae- 
an  (Con.  Adv.  Leg.  et  Proph.,  1.  1,  c.  20)  :  Pcsnitentia  Dei  non  est  post  errorem  :  Ira 
Dei  non  habet  perturbati  animi  ardorem  :  Misericordia  Dei  non  habet  compatientis 
miserum  cor  :  Zelus  Dei  non  habet  mentis  livorem.  Sed  poenitentia  Dei  dicitur  rerum 
in  ejus  potestate  constitutarum  hominibus  inopinaia  mutatio  :  Ira  Dei  est  vindicta  pec- 
cati :  Misericordia  Dei  est  bonitas  opitulantis  ;  Zelus  Dei  est  providentia  qua  non  sinit 
eos  quos  subditos  habet  impune  amare  quod  prohibet.     Cf.  Ad  Simplic,  I.  2,  qu.  2. 


126  THE  UNMERCIFUL  SERVANT. 

ous  complain  to  God,  and  mourn  in  their  prayer  over  the  oppressions 
that  are  wrought  in  their  sight :  the  things  which  they  cannot  set  right 
themselves,  the  wrongs  which  they  are  not  strong  enough  to  redress 
themselves,  they  can  at  least  bring  unto  him,  and  he  hears  their  cry. 
The  king  summons  the  unthankful  and  unmerciful  servant  into  his  pre- 
sence,  and  addresses  to  him  words  of  severest  rebuke,  which  it  is  no- 
ticeable he  had  not  used  before  for  his  debt's  sake,  but  now  he  uses  on 
account  of  his  cruelty  and  ingratitude — "  Q  thou  wicked  servant,*  I  for- 
gave thee  all  that  debt,  because  thou  desiredst  me  :  shouldest  not  thou  also 
have  had  compassion  on  thy  fellow-servant,  even  as  I  had  pity  on  thee  ?" 
— wert  thou  not  bound,  was  there  not  a  moral  obligation  on  thee,  to  show 
compassion, — even  as  compassion  had  been  shown  to  thee  ?  f  We  may 
here  observe,  that  the  guilt  laid  to  his  charge  is  this,  not  that,  needing 
mercy,  he  refused  to  show  it,  but  that  having  received  mercy  he  remains 
unmerciful  still ;  a  most  important  difference  ! — so  that  they  who  like 
him  are  hard-hearted  and  cruel,  do  not  thereby  bear  witness  that  they 
have  received  no  mercy  ;  on  the  contrary,  the  stress  of  their  offence  is, 
that  having  received  an  infinite  mercy,  they  remain  unmerciful  yet. 
The  objective  fact,  the  great  mercy  for  the  world,  that  Christ  has  put 
away  sin  and  that  we  have  been  made  partakers  in  our  baptism  of  that 
benefit,  stands  firm,  whether  we  allow  it  to  exercise  a  purifying,  sancti- 
fying, humanizing  influence  on  our  hearts  or  not.  Our  faith  appre- 
hends, indeed,  the  benefit,  but  has  not  created  it,  any  more  than  our 
opening  our  eyes  upon  the  sun  has  set  it  in  the  heavens. 

"  And  his  lord  was  wroth,  and  delivered  him  to  the  tormentors,"  ac- 
cording to  that  word,  "  He  shall  have  judgment  without  mercy,  that 
hath  showed  no  mercy."  (Jam.  ii.  13.)  Before  he  had  dealt  with  him 
as  a  creditor  with  a  debtor,  now  as  a  judge  with  a  criminal.  "  The 
tormentors  "  are  not  merely  the  keepers  of  the  prison  as  such  ;  but  those 
who  also,  as  the  word  implies,  shall  make  the  life  of  the  prisoner  bitter 
to  him  ;  even  as  there  are  "  tormentors  "  in  that  world  of  woe,  whereof 
this  prison  is  a  figure — fellow-sinners  and  evil  angels — instruments  of 
the  just,  yet  terrible  judgments  of  God.:}:   But  here  it  is  strange  that  the 


*  Bengel :  Sic  non  vocatus  fuerat  ob  debituni, — a  remark  whicli  Origen  and 
Chrysostom  had  already  made. 

t  See  Chrysostom,  Be  Simult.,  Horn.  20,  6,  an  admirable  discourse. 

X  Grotius  makes  the  (iaaaviaTui  merely  =  icapoipi^aKCi,  and  Kuinoel,  who  observes 
that  debtors  are  given  to  safe  keeping,  but  not  to  tortures  ;  but  this  seems  rather  in- 
accurately stated,  since  we  know,  for  instance,  that  in  early  times  of  Rome  there  were 
certain  legal  tortures,  in  tlie  shape,  at  least,  of  a  chain  weighing  fifteen  pounds,  and  a 
pittance  of  food  barely  eufTicient  to  sustain  life,  (see  Arnold's  Hist,  of  Eome,  v.  1,  p. 
136,)  which  the  creditor  was  allowed  to  apply  to  the  debtor  for  the  purpose  of  bring- 


THE  UNMERCIFUL  SERVANT.  i2J 

king  delivers  the  offender  to  prison  and  to  punishment  not  for  his  ingra- 
titude or  cruelty,  but  for  the  very  debt  which  would  appear  before  to 
have  been  entirely  and  without  conditions  remitted  to  him.  "When  Ham- 
mond says,  that  the  king  "  revoked  his  designed  mercy,"  and  would 
transfer  that  to  the  relation  between  God  and  sinners,  this  is  an  exam- 
pie  of  those  evasions  of  a  difficulty  by  help  of  an  ambiguous  expression, 
or  a  word  ingeniously  thrust  in  by  the  commentator,  which  are  so  fre- 
quent even  in  some  of  the  best  interpreters  of  Scripture.  It  was  not 
merely  a  mercy  designed,  the  king  had  not  merely  jmrposed  to  forgive 
him,  but  in  the  distinct  words  of  the  earlier  part  of  the  parable  he  "for- 
gave him  the  debt."  An  ingenious  explanation  is  that  which  would 
make  the  debt  for  which  he  is  now  cast  into  prison,  the  debt  of  mercy 
and  love,  which  he  had  not  paid,  but  which  yet  was  due,  according  to 
that  word  of  St.  Paul's,  "  Owe  no  man  anything,  but  to  love  one  an- 
other ;"  but  neither  can  this  be  accepted  as  satisfactory.  Nor  are  the 
cases  of  Adonijah  and  Shimei  (1  Kin.  ii.),  which  are  sometimes  adduced, 
altogether  in  point.  They  no  doubt,  on  occasion  of  their  later  offences, 
were  punished  far  more  severely  than  probably  they  would  have  been, 
had  it  not  been  for  their  former  offences  ;  yet  still  it  is  not  the  former 
crimes  which  are  revived  that  they  may  be  punished,  but  the  later 
offence  which  calls  down  its  own  punishment;  and  moreover,  to  pro- 
duce parallels  from  the  questionable  acts  of  imperfect  men,  is  but  a  poor 
way  of  establishing  the  righteousness  of  God. 

The  question  herein  involved.  Do  sins,  once  forgiven,  return  on  the 
sinner  through  his  after  offences  ?  is  one  frequently  and  fully  discussed 
by  the   Schoolmen  ;*  and  of  course  this   parable,   and  the  arguments 

ing  him  to  terms  ;  and  no  doubt  they  ofien  did  not  stop  here.  The  old  centurion 
(LivY,  2.  23)  complains :  Ductum  se  ab  creditore  non  in  serviiium,  sed  in  eigastulnm 
et  carnificinam  esse :  inde  ostentare  tergum,  fcsdum  recentibus  vestigiis  vulnerum. 
In  the  East,  too,  where  there  is  a  continual  suspicion  that  those  who  may  appear  the 
poorest,  and  who  affirm  themselves  utterly  insolvent,  are  actually  in  possession  of  some 
secret  hoards  of  wealth,  as  is  very  often  the  case,  the  torture  (/iutnii'o?,)  in  one  shape  or 
another,  would  be  often  applied,  as  we  know  that  it  is  often  nowadays,  to  make  the 
debtor  reveal  these  hoards ;  or  if  not  with  this  hope,  his  life  is  often  made  bitter  tc  him 
for  the  purpose  of  wringing  the  money  demanded,  from  the  compassion  of  his  friends. 
In  all  these  cases  the  jailer  would  be  naturally  the  instrument  employed  for  the  pur- 
pose of  inflicting  these  pains  on  the  prisoner;  (see  1  Kin.  xxii.  27  ;)  so  that  there  is  no 
reason  why  we  should  understand  by  these  "  tormentors,"  merely  the  keepers  of  the 
prison,  "  the  jailers,"  as  Tyndale's  and  Cranmer's  Bibles  give  it,  and  not  rather  accept 
the  word  in  its  proper  sense.  Besides,  if  the  unforgiving  servant  had  merely  been 
given  into  ward,  his  punishment  would  now  have  been  less  than  that  with  which  he 
was  threatened,  when  his  offence  was  not  near  so  great  as  now  it  had  become — for  then 
he  was  to  have  been  sold  into  slavery. 

*  By  Pet.  Lombard,  1.  4,  dist.  22  ;  Aquinas  {Sum.  TAeoZ.,pars  3,  qu.  88,)  and  IL 


228  THE  UNMERCIFUL  SERVANT. 

which  may  be  drawn  from  it,  always  take  a  prominent  place  in  such 
discussions.  But  it  may  be  worthy  of  consideration,  whether  the  difficul- 
ties do  not  arise  mainly  from  our  allowing  ourselves  in  too  dead  and 
formal  a  way  of  contemplating  the  forgiveness  of  sins ; — from  our  suf- 
fering the  earthly  circumstances  of  the  remission  of  a  debt  to  embarrass 
the  heavenly  truth,  instead  of  regarding  them  as  helps,  but  at  the  same 
time  weak  and  often  failing  ones,  for  the  setting  forth  that  truth.  One 
cannot  conceive  of  remission  of  sins  apart  from  living  communion  with 
Christ  ;  this  is  one  of  the  great  ideas  brought  out  in  our  baptismal  ser- 
vice, that  we  are  members  of  a  righteous  Person  and  justified  in  him. 
But  if  through  sin  we  cut  ourselves  off  from  communion  with  him,  we 
fall  back  into  a  state  of  nature,  which  is  of  itself  a  state  of  condemnation 
and  death,  a  state  upon  which  therefore  the  wrath  of  God  is  abiding.  If 
then,  laying  apart  the  contemplation  of  a  man's  sins  as  a  formal  debt, 
^\  hich  must  either  be  forgiven  him  or  not — we  contemplate  the  life  out 
of  Christ  as  a  state  of  wrath,  and  the  life  in  Christ  as  a  state  of  grace, 
the  first  a  walking  in  darkness,  and  the  other  a  walking  in  the  light,  we 
can  better  understand  how  a  man's  sins  should  return  upon  him  ;  that  is, 
he  sinning  anew  falls  back  into  the  darkness  out  of  which  he  had  been 
delivered,  and  no  doubt  all  that  he  has  done  of  evil  in  former  times  adds 
to  the  thickness  of  that  darkness,  causes  the  wrath  of  God  to  abide  more 
terribly  on  that  state  in  which  he  now  is,  and  therefore  upon  him.  (John 
V.  14.)  Even  as  also  it  must  not  be  left  out  of  sight  that  all  forgiveness 
short  of  the  crowning  act  of  forgiveness  and  mercy,  which  will  find 
place  on  the  day  of  judgment,  and  will  be  followed  by  a  total  impossibi- 
lity  of  sinning  any  more,  is  conditional, — in  the  very  nature  of  things  so 
conditional,  that  the  condition  must  in  every  case  be  assumed,  whether 
stated  or  no  ;  that  condition  being  that  the  forgiven  man  abide  in  faith 
and  obedience,  in  that  state  of  grace  into  which  he  has  been  brought ; 
which  he  whom  the  unmerciful  servant  here  represents,  had  not  done, 
but  on  the  contrary  evidently  and  plainly  showed  by  his  conduct,  that 
he  had  "  forgotten  that  he  was  purged  from  his  old  sins."  He  that  is  to 
partake  of  the  final  salvation  must  abide  in  Christ,  else  he  will  be  "  cast 
forth  as  a  branch,  and  withered."  (John  xv.  6.)  This  is  the  condition, 
not  arbitrarily  imposed  from  without,  but  belonging  to  the  very  essence 
of  the  salvation  itself;  as,  if  one  were  drawn  from  the  raging  sea,  and 

DE  Sto  Victore.  (Z>e  Sacram  ,  1.  2,  pars  14,  c.  9  :  Utrum  peccata  semel  diinissa  re- 
deant.)  Cf.  Augustine,  De  Bapt.,  Con.  Don.,  1.  1,  c.  12.  Cajetan,  quoting  Rom.  xi. 
29,  "the  gifis  of  God  are  without  repentance,"  {Antrafd'XnTa^  explains  thus  the  recalling 
of  the  pardon  which  had  once  been  granted:  Repetuntur  debita  semel  donata,  non  ut 
fuerant  prius  debita,  sed  ut  mod6  efiecla  sunt  materia  ingratitudinis, — which  is  exactly 
the  decision  of  Aquinas. 


THE  UNMERCIFUL  SERVANT.  129 

set  upon  the  safe  shore,  the  condition  of  his  continued  safety  would  be 
that  he  abode  there,  and  did  not  again  cast  himself  into  the  raging  wa- 
ters. In  this  point  of  view  an  interesting  parallel  will  be  supplied  to 
this  parable  by  1  John  i.  7,  "If  we  walk  in  the  light  as  he  is  in  the 
light,  we  have  fellowship  one  with  another,  and  the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ 
his  Son  cleanseth  us  from  all  sin."  He  whom  this  servant  represents 
does  not  abide  in  the  light  of  love,  but  falls  back  into  the  old  darkness ; 
he  has,  therefore,  no  fellowship  with  his  brother,  and  the  cleansing 
power  of  that  blood  ceases  from  him. 

It  is  familiar  to  many  that  the  Romish  theologians  have  often  found 
an  argument  for  purgatory,  in  the  words  "  till  he  should  jiay  all  thai  was 
due,"*  as  on  the  parallel  expression.  Matt.  v.  26  ;  as  though  they  desig- 
nated a  limit  beyond  which  the  punishment  should  not  extend.  But  it 
seems  plain  enough  that  the  phrase  is  nothing  more  than  a  proverbial 
one,  to  signify  that  the  offender  should  now  be  dealt  with  according  to 
the  extreme  rigour  of  the  law  ;-|-  that  he  should  have  justice  without 
mercy,  that  always  paying,  he  should  never  have  paid  off  his  debt.  For 
since  man  could  never  acquit  the  slightest  portion  of  the  debt  in  which 
he  is  indebted  to  God,  the  putting  that  as  a  condition  of  his  liberation, 
which  it  was  impossible  could  ever  be  fulfilled,  was  the  strongest  possi- 
ble way  of  expressing  the  eternal  duration  of  his  punishment ;  just  as, 
when  the  Phocseans  abandoning  their  city  swore  that  they  would  not  re- 
turn to  it  again,  till  the  mass  of  iron  which  they  plunged  into  the  sea 
appeared  once  more  upon  the  surface,  it  was  in  fact  the  most  emphatic 
form  they  could  devise  of  declaring  that  they  would  never  return  ; — 
such  an  emphatic  expression  is  the  present.:}: 

The  Lord  concludes  with  a  word  of  earnest  warning  :  "  So  likewise 
shall  my  heavenly  Father  do  also  unto  you,  if  ye  from  your  hearts  ^forgive 
not  every  one  his  brother  their  trespasses."    "  So" — with  the  same  rigour  j 

*  See  Gerhard's  Loci  Theoll.,  loc.  27,  c.  8.  Chrysostom  rightly  explains  it,  tov- 
Tcari  Siqi'CKws,  ovre  yap  aTroduxret  ttotc,  and  Augustine  (De  Serm.  Dom.  in  Mon.,\.  1,  c.  11)  : 
Donee  solvas....miror  si  non  earn  significat  pcenam  quse  vocaturaeterna.  SoRemigius  : 
Semper  solvet,  seci  nunquam  persolvet. 

t  Just  as  the  Roman  proverbs,  Ad  numum  solvere,  ad  extremum  assem  solvere. 
+  Just  so  Macbeth  thinks  he  has  the  strongest  assurance  of  safety,  while  that  is  put 
as  a  condition  of  his  defeat,  which  he  counts  can  never  come  to  pass  : 

"  Let  them  fly  all ; 
Till  Birnam  wood  remove  to  Dunsinane 
I  cannot  taint  with  fear." 
§  'Atto  rwf  Kap6iwv  =  £k  j/'i'x^s.  Ephes.  vi.  6  ;  to  the  exclusion,  not  merely  of  acts  of 
hostility,  but  also  of  all  jivriaiKaKia.     H.  de  Sto  Victore:  Ut  nee  opere  exerceat  vindic- 
tam,  nee  corde  reservet  malitiam  ;  and  Jerome  ;  Dominus  addidit,  de  cordibus  vestris, 
ut  omnem  simulationem  fictee  pacis  averteret. 


]  30  THE  UNMERCIFUL  SERVANT. 

such  treasures  of  wrath,  as  well  as  such  treasures  of  grace,  are  with 
him.  He  who  could  so  greatly  forgive,  can  also  so  greatly  punish. 
Chrysostom  observes,  that  he  says,  my  heavenly  Father,  meaning  to 
imply — yours  he  will  not  be,  since  so  acting  you  will  have  denied  the 
relationship ;  but  this  observation  can  scarcely  be  correct,  since  our 
Lord  often  says.  My  Father,  when  no  such  reason  can  be  assigned. 
(as  ver.  19.)  On  the  declaration  itself  we  may  observe  that,  according 
to  the  view  given  in  Scripture,  the  Christian  stands  in  a  middle  point, 
between  a  mercy  received  and  a  mercy  yet  needed.  Sometimes 
the  first  is  urged  upon  him  as  an  argument  for  showing  mercy — "  for- 
giving one  another  as  Christ  forgave  you  ;"  (Col.  iii.  13  ;  Ephes.  iv. 
32  :)  sometimes  the  last,  "  Blessed  are  the  merciful,  for  they  shall 
obtain  mercy  ;  "  (Matt.  v.  7  ;)  "Forgive  and  ye  shall  be  forgiven  ;  " 
(Luke  vi.  37;  Jam.  v,  9;)  and  so  the  son  of  Sirach,  (xxviii.  3,  4,) 
"  One  man  beareth  hatred  against  another,  and  doth  he  seek  pardon 
from  the  Lord  ?  he  showeth  no  mercy  to  a  man  who  is  like  himself, 
and  doth  he  ask  forgiveness  of  his  own  sins  !  " — so  that  while  he  is  ever 
to  look  back  on  the  mercy  received  as  the  source  and  motive  of  the 
mercy  which  he  shows,  he  also  looks  forward  to  the  mercy  which  he 
yet  needs,  and  which  he  is  assured  that  the  merciful,  according  to  what 
Bengel  beautifully  calls  the  Benigna  talio  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  shall 
receive,  as  a  new  provocation  to  its  abundant  exercise.  Tholuck  has 
some  good  remarks  upon  this  point :  "  From  the  circumstance  that  mer- 
cy is  here  [Matt.  v.  7]  promised  as  the  recompense  of  anterior  mercy 
on  our  part,  it  might  indeed  be  inferred  that  under  '  merciful  '  we  are  to 
imagine  such  as  have  not  yet  in  any  degree  partaken  of  mercy  ;  but  this 
conclusion  would  only  be  just  on  the  supposition,  that  the  divine  compas- 
sion consisted  in  an  isolated  act,  which  could  be  done  to  man  but  once  for 
all.  Seeing,  however,  that  it  is  an  act  which  extends  over  the  whole 
life  of  the  individual,  and  reaches  its  culminating  point  in  eternily,  it 
behooves  us  to  consider  the  compassion  of  God  for  man,  and  man  for 
his  brethren,  as  reciprocally  calling  forth  and  aflbrding  a  basis  for  one 
another."*  And  this  seems  the  explanation  of  a  difficulty  suggested 
by  Origen,f  namely,  where  in  time  we  are  to  place  the  transactions 
shadowed  forth  in  this  parable ! — for  on  the  one  hand,  there  arc  reasons 
why  they  should  be  placed  at  the  end  of  this  present  dispensation,  since, 
it  might  be  asked,  when  else  docs  God  take  account  with  his  servants 
for  condemnation  or  acquittal?  while  yet  on  the  other  hand,  if  it  were 
thus  placed  at  the  end  of  the  dispensation,  what  further  ^opportunity 

*  Auslegung  der  Bcrgpredigt,  p.  93. 
t  Comm.  in  Mallh.,  xviii. 


THE  LABOURERS  IN  THE  VINEYARD.  131 

would  there  be  for  the  forgiven  servant  to  show  the  harshness  which  he 
actually  does  show  to  his  fellow-servant  ?  The  difficulty  disappears, 
when  we  no  longer  contemplate  forgiveness  as  an  isolated  act,  which 
must  take  place  at  some  definate  moment,  but  consider  it  as  ever  going 
forward, — as  running  parallel  with  and  extending  over  the  entire 
life.* 


PARABLE  IX. 


THE    LABOURERS    IN    THE   VINEYARD. 

Matthew  xx.  1-16. 

This  parable  stands  in  closest  connexion  with  the  four  last  verses  of 
the  preceding  chapter,  and  can  only  be  rightly  understood  by  their  help, 
so  that  the  actual  division  of  the  chapters  is  here  peculiarly  unfortunate, 
causing,  as  it  has  often  done,  this  parable  to  be  explained  quite  indepen- 
dently of  the  context,  and  without  any  attempt  to  show  the  circumstances 
out  of  which  it  sprung.     And  yet  on  the  right  tracing  of  this  connexion, 

*  There  is  a  fine  story  illustrative  of  this  parable,  told  hy  Fleury,  {Hist.  Eccles., 
V.  2,  p.  334.)  It  is  briefly  this.  Between  two  Christians  at  Antioch  enmity  and  di- 
vision had  fallen  out.  After  a  while  one  of  them  desired  to  be  reconciled,  but  the 
other,  who  was  a  priest,  refused.  While  it  was  thus  with  them,  the  persecution  of 
Valerian  began;  and  Sapricius,  the  priest,  having  boldly  confessed  himself  a  Christian, 
was  on  the  way  to  death.  Nicephorus  met  him  and  again  sued  for  peace,  which  wag 
again  refused.  While  he  was  seeking  and  the  other  refusing,  they  arrived  at  the  place 
of  execution.  He  that  should  have  been  the  martyr  was  here  terrified,  ofl^ered  to  sacri- 
fice to  the  gods,  and  despite  the  entreaties  of  the  other  did  so,  making  shipwreck  of  his 
faith:  while  Nicephorus,  boldly  confessing,  stepped  in  his  place,  and  received  the 
crown  which  Sapricius  lost.  This  whole  story  runs  finely  parallel  with  our  parable.  Be- 
fore Sapricius  could  have  had  grace  to  confess  thus  to  Christ,  he  must  have  had  his  own 
ten  thousand  talents  forgiven  ;  but  refusing  to  forgive  a  far  lesser  wrong,  to  put  away 
the  di'^pleasure  he  had  taken  up  on  some  infinitely  lighter  grounds  against  his  brother, 
he  forfeited  all  the  advantages  of  his  position,  his  Lord  was  angry,  took  away  from  his 
grace,  and  suffered  him  again  to  fall  under  those  powers  of  evil  from  which  he  had 
been  once  delivered.  It  comes  out,  too,  in  this  story,  that  it  is  not  mei-ely  the  outward 
wrong  and  outrage  upon  a  brother,  which  constitutes  a  likeness  to  the  unmerciful  ser- 
vant, but  the  unforgiving  temper,  even  apart  from  all  such.  So  Augustine  {QucBst. 
Evang.,  1.  1,  qu.  25)  :  Noluit  ignoscere, .  .  .  intelligendum,  tenuit  contra  eum  hunc 
animum,  ut  supplicia  illi  vellet. 


132  THE  LABOURERS  IN  THE  VINErARD. 

and  the  showing  how  the  parable  grew  out  of,  and  was  in  fact  an  answer 
to,  Peter's  question,  "  What  shall  we  have?"  the  success  of  the  exposi- 
tion will  mainly  depend.  The  parable  now  to  be  considered  is  only  sec- 
ond to  that  of  the  Unjust  Steward  in  the  number  of  explanations,*  and 
those  the  most  widely  different,  that  have  been  proposed  for  it ;  as  it  is 
also  only  second  to  that,  if  indeed  second,  in  the  difficulties  which  beset 
it.  These  Chrysostom  f  states  clearly  and  strongly  ;  though  few,  I  think, 
will  be  wholly  satisfied  with  his  solution  of  them.  There  is  first  the  dif- 
ficulty of  bringing  the  parable  into  harmony  with  the  saying  by  which 
it  is  introduced  and  concluded,  and  which  it  is  plainly  intended  to  illus- 
trate :  and  secondly,  there  is  the  moral  difficulty,  the  same  as  finds  place 
in  regard  of  the  elder  brother  in  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son, — 
namely,  how  can  one  who  is  himself  a  member  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
"be  held,"  as  Chrysostom  terms  it,  "by  that  lowest  of  all  passions,  en- 
vy, and  an  evil  eye,"  grudging  in  his  heart  the  favours  shown  to  other 
members  of  that  kingdom  ?  or,  if  it  be  denied  that  these  murmurers  and 
envious  are  members  of  that  kingdom,  how  is  this  denial  reconcilable 
with  the  fact  of  their  having  laboured  all  day  in  the  vineyard,  and  ulti- 
mately carrying  away  their  own  reward  ?  And  lastly,  there  is  the  dif- 
ficulty of  deciding  what  is  the  salient  point  of  the  parable,  the  main  doc- 
trine which  we  are  to  gather  from  it. 

Of  those  who  have  sought  to  interpret  it  there  are  first  they,  who 
see  in  the  equal  penny  to  all,  the  key  to  the  whole  matter,  and  who  say 
that  the  lesson  to  be  learned  is  this, — the  equality  of  rewards  in  the  king- 
dom of  God.:}:  This  was  the  explanation  which  Luther  gave  in  his  ear- 
lier works,  though  he  afterwards  saw  reason  to  alter  his  opinion.  But 
however  this  may  appear  to  agree  with  the  parable,§  it  evidently  agrees 

*  Hase,  {Lehen  Jesu,  p.  147,)  gives  the  literature  connected  with  this  parable,  con- 
sisting of  no  less  than  fifteen  essays,  most  of  them  separately  published  ;  and  has  yet 
omitted  some,  of  which  the  titles  are  given  in  Wolf's  Curee. 

t  In  Matth.,  Horn.  64. 

X  Augustine  also  (Serm.  343)  says  of  the  penny  to  all :  Denarius  ille  vita  ffiterna 
est,  quae  omnibus  par  est, — but  without  affirming  equality  in  the  kingdom  of  God  ;  for 
all  the  stars,  as  he  goes  on  to  say,  are  in  the  same  firmament,  yet  "  one  star  differeth 
from  another  star  in  glory  :"  (Splendor  dispar,  cesium  commune.)  Cf.  De  Sand.  Vir- 
gin., c.  26.  In  like  manner  Bernard,  In  Ps.  Qui  habitat,  Serm.  9,  4  ;  and  see  Am- 
brose, Ep.  7,  c.  11,  and  Gregory  the  Great,  Moral.,  1.  4,  c.  36. 

§  Yet  Spanheim  {Duh.  Evung.,  v.  3,  p.  785)  is  not  easily  answered,  when  against 
this  he  says  :  Nee  enim  per  denarium  vita  ajterna  intelligi  potest,  quippe  qui  denarius 
datur  eliam  murmuratoribus  et  invidis,  nee  datus  exsaliat,  et  datur  illis  qui  recedere 
jubentur  a  Domino,  (ver.  14.)  Atqui  nee  murmuratorum  portio  est  vita  aeterna,  nee 
invidorum,  nee  homines  a  Deo  abducit,  sed  conjungit  cum  illo,  nee  uUi  datur,  cui  non 
plenam  adferat  satietatem  gaudiorum. 


THE  LABOURERS  IN  THE  VINEYARD.  133 

not  at  all  with  the  saying,  of  which  that  is  clearly  meant  to  be  the  illus- 
tration— "  Many  that  are  first  shall  he  last,  and  the  last  shall  he  first  ;"* 
for  that  equality  would  be, — not  a  reversing  of  their  order,  but  a  setting 
of  all  upon  a  level.  Others  affirm  that  the  parable  is  meant  to  set  forth  this 
truth, — that  God  does  not  regard  the  length  of  time  during  which  men  are 
occupied  in  his  work,  but  the  fidelity  and  strenuous  exertion  with  which 
they  accomplish  that  work.-]-  Of  this  view  there  will  presently  be  occa- 
sion to  speak  more  at  large,  it  will  be  enough  now  to  observe  that  the 
assumption  that  the  last-hired  labourers  had  worked  more  strenuously 
than  the  first,  is  entirely  gratuitous  ; — this  circumstance,  if  the  narrative 
had  turned  on  it,  would  have  scarcely  been  omitted. — Calvin  again 
asserts  that  its  purpose  is  to  warn  us  against  being  over-confident,  be- 
cause we  have  begun  well ;  \  lest  (though  this  is  not  his  illustration), 
like  the  hare  in  the  fable,  growing  careless  and  remiss  in  our  exertions, 
we  allow  others  to  outrun  us :  and  so  having  seemed  the  first,  fall  into 
the  hindmost  rank, — that  it  conveys  a  warning  that  no  one  begin  to  boast, 
or  consider  the  battle  won,  till  he  put  off"  his  armour.  But  neither  will 
this  agree  with  the  circumstances  of  the  parable,  since  the  labourers  who 
were  first  engaged  are  not  accused  of  having  grown  slack  in  labour  dur- 
ing the  latter  part  of  the  day. 

There  are  others  who  make — not  the  penny  equal  to  all,  but  the  suc- 
cessive hours  at  which  the  different  bands  of  labourers  were  hired,  the 
most  prominent  circumstance  of  the  parable.  And  these  interpreters 
may  be  again  subdivided,  for  there  are  first  those  who,  as  Origen  and  Hil- 
ary, make  it  to  contain  a  history  of  the  diflferent  summonses  to  a  work  of 
righteousness,  which  God  has  made  to  men  from  the  beginning  of  the 
world, — to  Adam, — to  Noah, — to  Abraham, — to  Moses, — and  lastly  to 
the  apostles,  bidding  them  each,  in  his  order,  to  go  work  in  his  vineyard. 
Of  these,  all  the  earlier  lived  during  weaker  and  more  imperfect  dispen- 
sations, and  underwent,  therefore,  an  harder  labour,  in  that  they  had  not 
such  abundant  gifts  of  the  Spirit,  such  clear  knowledge  of  the  grace  of 
God  in  Christ,  to  sustain  them,  as  the  later  called,  the  members  of  the 
Christian  Church.     Their  heavier  toil,  therefore,  might  aptly  be  set  forth 

*  Fritzche,  indeed,  finds  no  difficulty  in  giving  the  sense  of  the  gnome  thus :  Qui 
postremi  ad  Messiam  se  adplicuerunt,  primis  accensebuntur,  et  qui  primi  eum  secuti 
sunt,  postremis : — but  this  is  doing  evident  violence  to  the  words. 

t  So  Maldonatus :  Finis  parabolse  est  mercedem  vitae  aBternse  non  tempori  quo 
quis  laboravit,  sed  labori  et  operi  quod  fecit  respondere  ;  and  Kuinoel  the  same. 

\  Non  alio  Dominum  spectasse  quam  ut  suos  ad  pergendum  continuis  stimulis  in- 
citaret.  Scimus  enim  segnitiem  fere  ex  nimia  fiducia  nasci.  If  we  found,  indeed,  the 
gnome  by  itself,  we  might  then  say  that  such  was  his  purpose  in  it ;  see  the  admirable 
use  which  Chrysostom  {In  Matth.,  Horn.  67,  adfinem)  makes  of  it,  in  this  regard. 


134  THE  LABOURERS  IN  THE  VINEYARD. 

by  a  longer  period  of  work,  and  that  at  the  more  oppressive  time  of  the 
day ;  (compare  Acts  xv.  10  ;)  while  the  apostles,  and  the  rest  of  the 
faithful  who  were  called  into  God's  vineyard  at  the  eleventh  hour,  (the 
last  time,  or  the  last  hour,  as  St.  John  [1  Ep.  ii.  18]  calls  the  Christian 
dispensation,)  and  were  made  partakers  of  the  larger,  freer  grace  that 
was  now  given  in  Christ,  had  to  endure  little  by  comparison.  But  in 
regard  to  this  explanation,*  it  may  be  asked,  when  could  that  murmuring 
have  taken  place,  even  supposing  the  people  of  God  could  thus  grudge 
because  of  the  larger  grace  freely  bestowed  upon  others?  Those  prior 
generations  could  not  have  so  murmured  in  their  lifetime,  for  before  the 
things  were  even  revealed  which  God  had  prepared  for  his  people  that 
came  after,  they  were  in  their  graves.  Far  less  is  it  to  be  conceived  as 
finding  place  in  the  day  of  judgment,  or  in  the  kingdom  of  love  made  per- 
fect. Unless,  then,  we  quite  explain  away  the  murmuring,  and  say  with 
Chrysostom,  that  the  Lord  only  introduced  it  to  magnify  the  greatness 
of  the  things  freely  given  to  his  disciples,  which  he  would  thus  imply 
•were  so  great  and  glorious,  that  those  who  lived  before  they  were  imparted 
might  be  provoked  to  murmur  at  the  comparison  of  themselves  with  their 
more  richly  endowed  successors,  were  it  possible  to  imagine  that  such  a 
feeling  of  envy  could  be  entertained  in  their  heart, — unless  we  accept 
this  ingenious  solution  of  the  difficulty,  this  explanation  of  the  parable 
seems  almost  untenable,  as,  were  it  worth  while,  much  more  might  be 
brought  against  it. — Then  there  are,  secondly,  they  who,  in  the  different 
hours  at  which  the  labourers  are  hired,  see  the  different  periods  of  men's 
lives,  at  which  they  enter  on  the  work  of  the  Lord  ;  and  who  affirm  that 
the  purpose  is  to  encourage  those  who  have  entered  late  on  his  service, 
now  to  labour  heartily,  not  allowing  the  consciousness  of  past  negli- 
gences to  dispirit  them,  since  they  too,  if  only  they  will  labour  with  their 
might  for  the  time,  long  or  short,  which  remains,  shall  receive  a  full  re- 
ward with  the  rest.      This  is,  in  the  main,  Chrysostom's  view  jf   but 

•  Were  it  the  right  one,  John  iv.  35-38  would  afford  a  most  interesting  parallel  : 
for  it  is  exactly  this  which  is  there  declared.  The  ''  other  men"  that  laboured  (ver.  38) 
are  the  generations  that  went  before,  doing  their  harder  tasks  under  the  Law,  breaking 
up  the  fallow  ground  of  men's  hearts,  and  wiih  toil  and  tears  sowing  their  seed, — this 
would  answer  to  the  bearing  here  the  burden  and  heat  of  the  day.  The  blessedness 
of  the  disciples  is  there  magnified,  in  that  theirs  is  an  easier  task,  the  reaping  and 
gathering  in  of  the  spiritual  harvest  ;  they  enter  upon  other  men's  labours  ; — which  is 
the  counterpart  to  the  coming  into  the  vineyard  at  the  eleventh  hour.  But  the  true 
feeling  of  the  first  laboureis  and  of  the  last,  of  the  hardest-tasked  and  the  lightest,  is 
there  also  declared,  the  only  feeling  which  could  find  place  in  the  kingdom  of  God, 
they  "  rejoice  together,"  (ver.  3G,)  are  unenvying  partakers  of  the  same  joy. 

t  And  also  Jerome's  {Comm.  in  Maith.) :  Mihi  vidcntur  primze  horaj  esse  operarii 
Samuel  et  Jeremias  et  Baptista  Johannes,  qui  possunt  cum  Psalmista  dicere.  Ex  utero 


THE  LABOURERS  IN  THE  VINEYARD.         "[35 

while,  under  certain  limitations,  such  encou-ragement  may  undoubt- 
edly be  drawn  from  the  parable,  it  is  another  thing  to  say  that  this  is  the 
admonishment  which  it  is  especially  meant  to  convey.  If  that  were  the 
interpretation,  in  what  living  connexion  would  the  parable  stand  with 
what  went  before,  with  Peter's  question  which  occasioned  it,  or  with  the 
spirit  out  of  which  that  question  grew,  and  which  this  teaching  of  the 
Lord  was  meant  to  meet  and  to  correct  ? 

But  the  explanation  which  is  very  frequently  offered,  and  which 
certainly  contains  more  truth  in  it  than  all  which  have  hitherto  been 
passed  under  review,  is  that  which  makes  the  parable  a  warning  and  a 
prophecy,  of  the  causes  which  would  lead  to  the  rejection  of  the  Jews, 
the  first  called  into  the  vineyard  of  the  Lord  ;— these  causes  being  main- 
ly their  proud  appreciation  of  themselves  and  of  their  own  work  ;  their 
dislike  at  seeing  the  Gentiles,  so  long  aliens  from  the  commonwealth  of 
Israel,  put  on  the  same  footing,  admitted  at  once  to  equal  privileges  with 
themselves  in  the  kingdom  of  Gcd  : — and  an  agreement  or  covenant  be- 
ing made  with  the  first  hired,  and  none  with  those  subsequently  engaged, 
has  seemed  a  confirmation  of  this  view.  Doubtless  this  application  of 
the  parable  is  by  no  means  to  be  excluded.  It  was  notably  fulfilled  in 
the  Jews  ;  their  conduct  did  supply  a  solemn  confirmation  of  the  need  of 
the  warning  here  given  :  but  its  application  is  universal  and  not  particu- 
lar; this  fulfilment  was  only  one  out  of  many  :  for  our  Lord's  words  are 
so  rich  in  meaning,  so  bring  out  the  essential  and  permanent  relations 
between  man  and  God,  that  they  are  continually  finding  their  fulfilment. 
Had  this  however  been  the  meaning  which  our  Lord  had  exclusively, 
or  even  primarily,  in  his  eye,  we  should  expect  to  hear  of  but  two  bands 
of  labourers,  the  first  hired  and  the  last :  all  those  who  come  between 
would  only  serve  to  confuse  and  perplex  the  image.  The  solution  some- 
times given  of  this  objection, — that  the  successive  hirings  are  the  suc- 
cessive summonses  to  the  Jews  ;  first,  under  Moses  and  Aaron  ;  second- 
ly, under  David  and  the  kings  ;  thirdly,  under  the  Maccabsean  chiefs 
and  priests;  and  lastly,  in  the  time  of  Christ  and  his  apostles;  or  that 
these  are  Jews,  Samaritans,  and  proselytes  of  greater  or  less  strict- 
ness,— seems  devised  merely  to  escape  from  an  embarrassment,  and  only 
witnesses  for  its  existence  without  removing  it.* 

matris  mesa  Deus  es  tu.  Teniae  vero  horse  operarii  sunt  qui  in  pubertate  servire  Deo 
cseperunt.  Sextae  horje,  qui  matura  aetata  susceperunt  jugum  Christi ;  nonae,  qui  jam 
declinant  ad  senium  :  porro  undecimae,  qui  ultima  senectute.  Et  tamen  omnes  pariter 
accipiuiit  praemium,  licet  diversus  labor  sit. 

*  This  explanation  of  the  parablt- ,  however,  is  maintained  by,  and  satisfies,  Grotius ; 
and  also  by  Mr.  Greswell,  {Exp.  of  the  Par.,  v.  4,  p.  370,  seq.)  who  has  done  for  it 
everything  whereof  it  is  capable,  to  whi  acceptance  for  it. 


136  THE  LABOURERS  IN  THE  VINEYARD. 

Better  then  to  say  that  the  parable  is  directed  against  a  wrong  tem- 
per, and  spirit  of  mind,  which  indeed  was  notably  manifested  in  the  Jews, 
but  which  not  merely  they,  but  all  men  in  possession  of  spiritual  privi- 
leges, have  need  to  be,  and  are  here,  warned  against :  while  at  the  same 
time  the  immediate  occasion  from  which  the  parable  rose,  was  not  one 
in  which  they  were  involved.  This  is  clear,  for  the  warning  was  not 
primarily  addressed  to  them,  but  to  the  apostles,  as  the  chiefest  and  fore- 
most in  the  Christian  Church,  the  earliest  called  to  labour  in  the  Lord's 
vineyard — "  the  first,'"  both  in  time,  and  in  the  amount  of  suffering  and 
toil  which  they  would  have  to  undergo.  They  had  seen  the  rich  young 
man  (xix.  22)  go  sorrowful  away,  unable  to  abide  the  proof  by  which 
the  Lord  had  mercifully  revealed  to  him  how  strongly  he  was  yet  holden 
to  the  world  and  the  things  of  the  world.  They  (for  Peter  here,  as  in 
so  many  other  instances,  is  the  representative  and  spokesman  of  all) 
would  fain  know  what  their  reward  should  be,  who  had  done  this  very 
thing  from  which  he  had  shrunk,  and  had  forsaken  all  for  the  Gospel's 
sake,  (ver,  27.)  The  Lord  answers  them  first  and  fully,  that  they  and 
as  many  as  should  do  the  same  for  his  sake,  should  reap  an  abundant 
reward,  (ver.  28,  29.)  At  the  same  time  the  question  itself,  "  What 
shall  we  have  ?"  was  not  a  right  one  ;  it  was  putting  their  relation  to 
their  Lord  on  a  wrong  footing ;  there  was  a  tendency  in  the  question  to 
bring  their  obedience  to  a  calculation  of  so  much  work,  so  much  reward. 
There  was  also  a  certain  self-complacency  lurking  in  this  speech,  not 
so  much  a  vain  confidence  in  themselves,  considered  by  themselves,  as 
a  comparison  for  self-exaltation  with  others — a  comparison  between 
themselves  who  had  not  shrunk  back  from  the  command  to  forsake  all, 
and  the  young  man  who  had  found  the  requirement  too  hard  for  him. 
That  spirit  of  self-exalting  comparison  of  ourselves  with  others,  which 
is  so  likely  to  be  stirring,  when  we  behold  any  signal  failure  on  their 
part,  was  at  work  in  them ;  and  the  very  answer  which  the  Lord  gave 
to  their  question  would  have  been  as  fuel  to  the  fire,  unless  it  had  been 
accompanied  with  the  warning  of  the  parable.  It  is  true  that  this  self- 
complacent  thought  was  probably  only  as  an  under-thought  in  Peter's 
mind,  obscurely  working  within  him,  one  of  which  he  was  himself  hardly 
conscious  ;  but  the  Lord,  who  knew  what  was  in  man,  saw  with  a  glance 
into  the  depths  of  his  heart,  and  having  given  an  answer  to  the  direct 
question,  went  on  by  this  further  teaching,  to  nip  at  once  the  evil  sprout  in 
the  bud  before  it  should  proceed  to  develope  itself  further.  "  Not  of  works, 
lest  any  man  should  boast ;"  this  was  the  truth  which  they  were  in  danger 
of  losing  sight  of,  and  which  he  would  now  by  the  parable  enforce  ;  and 
if  nothing  of  works,  but  all  of  grace  for  all,  then  no  glorying  of  one  over 


THE  LABOURERS  IN  THE  VINEYARD.  137 

another  could  find  place,  no  grudging  of  one  against  another,  no  claim  as 
of  right  upon  the  part  of  any. 

First  indeed  the  Lord  answered  the  question,  "  What  shall  we  have  ?" 
As  they  in  deed  and  in  sincerity  had  forsaken  all  for  Christ's  sake,  and  de- 
sired  to  know  what  their  reward  should  be,  he  does  not  think  it  good  to 
withhold  the  reply,  but  answers  them  fully, — the  reward  shall  be  great. 
But  having  answered  so,  his  discourse  takes  another  turn,*  as  is  suffi- 
ciently indicated  in  the  words,  "  But  many  that  are  first  shall  be  last ;" 
and  he  will  warn  them  now  against  giving  place  too  much  to  that  spirit 
out  of  which  the  question  proceeded:  for  there  was  therein  a  pluming 
of  themselves  upon  their  own  work,  an  invidious  comparison  of  them- 
selves with  others,  a  certain  attempt  to  bring  in  God  as  their  debtor. 
In  short,  the  spirit  of  the  hireling  spoke  in  that  question,  and  it  is  against 
this  spirit  that  the  parable  is  directed,  which  might  justly  be  entitled, 
On  the  nature  of  rewards  in  the  kingdom  of  God, — the  whole  finding 
a  most  instructive  commentary  in  Rom.  iv.  1-4,  which  passage  sup- 
plies a  parallel  not  indeed  verbal,  but  a  more  deeply  interesting,  that  is, 
a  real  parallel  with  the  present. 

As  far  as  it  is  addressed  to  Peter,  and  in  him  to  all  true  believers, 
the  parable  is  rather  a  warning  against  what  might  be,  if  they  were  not 
careful  to  watch  against  it,  than  a  prophecy  of  what  would  he.'f  For  we 
cannot  imagine  him  who  dwells  in  love  as  allowing  himself  in  envious  and 
grudging  thoughts  against  any  of  his  brethren,  because,  though  they  have 
entered  later  on  the  service  of  God,  or  been  engaged  on  a  lighter  labour, 
they  will  yet  be  sharers  with  him  of  the  same  heavenly  reward, — or  re- 
fusing to  welcome  them  gladly  to  all  the  blessings  and  privileges  of  the 
communion  of  Christ.     Least  of  all  can  we  imagine  him  so  to  forgot  that 

*  Gerhard  ;  Sub  finem,  quia  Christo  Petri  et  reliquorum  confidentia  non  fuit  igno- 
ta,  et  verendum  erat  ne  ob  magnificam  lianc  promissionein  sese  aliis  preeferrent,  hunc 
locum  gravi  sententia  concludit,  qua  ipsos  et  in  primis  Petrum  sub  modestia  et  metu 
continere  cupit,  Muhi  autem  primi  erunt  novissimi,  et  novissimi  primi....Nolite  ergo 
ahum  sapere,  nolite  arroganter  de  vobis  ipsis  sentire.  So  also  Olsliausen,  who  refers 
to  ver.  20-28  of  this  chapter,  (of.  Mark  x.  35,)  as  an  evidence  how  liable  the  promise 
(xix.  28)  was  to  be  perverted  and  misunderstood  by  the  old  man  which  was  not  yet 
wholly  mortified  in  the  apostles.  But  the  whole  matter  has  been  strangely  reversed  by 
some,  who  instead  of  a  warning  and  a  caution  here,  see  rather  in  the  parable  a  follow- 
ing up  of  what  has  been  already  spoken: — "  You,  the  poor  and  despised,  who  might 
seem  the  last  called,  shall  be  first  in  the  kingdom  of  God — while  the  first,  the  wise, 
the  noble,  and  the  rich,  such,  for  instance,  as  that  young  man  and  all  the  spiritual 
chiefs  of  the  nation,  shall  be  last  in  the  day  of  the  Lord."  But  this  would  indeed 
have  been  fuel  to  a  fire  which  rather  needed  slaking,  and  which  it  was  the  very  pur- 
pose of  the  parable  to  ^ke. 

t  Bengel:  Respectu  Apostolorum  non  est  praedictio  sed  admonilia, 

10 


138  THE  LABOURERS  IN  THE  VINEYARD. 

he  also  is  saved  by  grace,  as  to  allow  such  hateful  feelings  to  come  to 
an  head,  actually  to  take  form  and  shape,  which  they  do  in  the  parable, — 
as  justifying  them  to  himself  or  to  God,  like  the  spokesman  among  the 
murmurers  here.  We  cannot  conceive  this  even  here  in  our  present  im- 
perfect state,  and  much  less  in  the  perfected  kingdom  hereafter  ;  for  love 
"  rejoices  in  the  truth,"*  and  the  very  fact  of  one  so  grudging  against 
another  would  prove  that  he  himself  did  not  dwell  in  love,  and  therefore 
was  himself  under  sentence  of  exclusion  from  that  kingdom. f  It  is  then 
a  warning  to  the  apostles,  and  through  them  to  all  believers,  of  what 
might  be, — not  a  prophecy  of  what  shall  be  with  any  that  share  in  the 
final  reward  ; — a  solemn  warning  that  however  long  continued  their  work, 
abundant  their  labours,  yet  if  they  had  not  this  charity  to  their  brethren, 
this  humility  before  God,  they  were  nothing  ; — that  pride  and  a  self-com- 
placent estimation  of  their  work,  like  the  fly  in  the  ointment,  would  spoil 
the  work,  however  great  it  might  be,  since  that  work  stands  only  in  hu- 
mility ;  and  from  first  they  would  fall  to  last, — There  is  then  this  dif- 
ference between  the  narration  in  the  parable,  and  the  truth  of  which  it 
is  the  exponent,  that  while  it  would  not  have  been  consistent  with  equity 
for  the  householder  altogether  to  have  deprived  the  first  labourers  of  their 
hire,  notwithstanding  their  pride  and  their  discontent,  so  that  conse- 
quently they  receive  their  wages,  and  are  not  punished  with  more  than  a 
severe  rebuke,  yet  the  lesson  to  be  taught  to  Peter,  and  through  him  to 
all  disciples  in  all  times,  is,  that  the  first  may  be  altogether  last,  that 
those  who  seem  chiefest  in  labour,  yet,  if  they  forget  withal  that  the 
reward  is  of  grace  and  not  of  works,  and  begin  to  boast  and  exalt  them- 
selves above  their  fellow-labourers,  may  altogether  lose  the  things  which 
they  have  wrought  ::j:  and  those  who  seem  last,  may  yet,  by  keeping  their 
humility,  be  acknowledged  first  in  the  day  of  God  ; — and  in  proof  of  this, 
the  parable  which  follows  was  spoken. 

It  commences  thus :  "  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  unto  a  man  thai 
is  an  householder,  which  went  out  early  in  the  morning  to  hire  labourers 
into  his  vineyard  .•"  in  other  words.  The  manner  of  God's  dealings  with 


*  In  the  beautiful  worcl3  of  Leighton  (Pralect.  6.):  '0  (pOunoi  i^io  tov  Osiov  x"?"^' 
sed  caritas  absolutissima,  quaunusquisque  simul  cum  sua  alterius  inutuo  felicitate  frui- 
tur  et  beatus  est  ilia  scillicet  tanquam  sua  coltetatus  ;  unde  inter  illos  iiifinita  qiiaedam 
beatiludinis  repercussio  et  multiplicatio  est ;  quails  foret  splendor  aula;  auro  et  geniniis, 
pleno  vegum  et  magnatum  clioro,  nitentis,  cujus  parietcs  speculis  undique  iucidissimis 
obtecti  essent. 

t  Gregory  tbe  Great  says  excellently  (Horn.  19,  in  Evang.)  on  this  murmuring  : 
Coslorum  regnum  nullus  murmurans  accipit :  nullus  qui  accipit,  murmurare  poterit. 

t  Gregory  the  Great  again  {Moral.,  1.  19,  c.  21) :  Ferit  <mine  quod  agitur,  si  non 
soUicite  in  humilitate  cusloditur. 


THE  LABOURERS  IN  THE  VINEYARD.  139 

those  whom  he  calls  to  the  privileges  of  working  in  his  Church, — that 
is,  his  kingdom  in  its  present  imperfect  development.. — is  similar  to  that 
of  an  householder,  who  went  early  in  the  morning  to  hire  labourers.  * 
This  is  ever  true  in  the  heavenly  world,  that  God  seeks  his  labourers, 
and  not  they  him  ;  "  You  have  not  chosen  me,  but  I  have  chosen  you." 
(John  XV.  16.)  Every  summons  to  a  work  in  the  heavenly  vineyard  is 
from  the  Lord  :  man's  heart  never  originates  the  impulse ;  all  which  is 
man's  in  the  matter  is,  that  he  do  not  resist  the  summons,  which  it  is  his 
melancholy  prerogative  that  he  is  able  to  do.  It  is  "  a  call,"  according 
to  the  instructive  Scriptural  expression  :  but  as  in  the  natural  world  a 
call  implies  no  force,  but  is  something  which  may  be  obeyed  or  refused, 
so  also  is  it  in  the  spiritual. 

The  householder  agreed  with  the  first  labourers  for  a  penny  a  day.f 
The  different  terms  upon  which  the  different  bands  of  labourers  went  to 
their  work,  would  scarcely  have  been  so  expressly  noted,  unless  stress 
were  to  be  laid  on  it.  An  agreement  was  made  by  these  first-hired  la- 
bourers before  they  entered  on  their  labour,  exactly  the  agreement  which 
Peter  wished  to  make,  "  What  shall  we  have  ?" — while  those  subse- 
quently engaged  went  in  a  simpler  spirit,  trusting  that  whatever  was 
right  and  equitable  the  householder  would  give  them.  Thus  we  have 
here  upon  the  one  side  early  indications  of  that  wrong  spirit  which  pre- 
sently comes  to  an  head;  (ver.  11,  12  ;)  on  the  other  side,  we  have  the 
true  spirit  of  humble  waiting  upon  the  Lord,  in  full  assurance  that  he 
will  give  far  more  than  we  can  desire  or  deserve, — that  God  is  not  un- 
righteous to  forget  any  labour  of  love, — that  his  servants  can  safely  trust 
in  him,  who  is  an  abundant  rewarder  of  all  them  that  seek  and  that  serve 
him.:}: 

*  Fleck  :  Non  in  und  persona  sed  in  tola  actione  collatio  consistit : — a  remark  of 
frequent  application. 

t  A  denarius,  a  Roman  silver  coin,  which  passed  current  as  equal  to  the  Greek 
drachm,  though  in  fact  some  few  grains  lighter.  It  was  =  8hd.,  at  the  latter  end  of 
the  commonwealth  ;  afterwards,  something  less,  of  our  money.  It  was  not  an  uncom- 
mon, though  a  liberal  day's  pay.  (See  Tob.  v.  14.)  Morier,  in  his  Second  Journey 
through  Persia,  p.  265,  mentions  having  noted  in  the  market-place  at  Hamadan  a 
custom  like  that  alluded  to  in  the  parable  : — "  Here  we  observed  every  morning  before 
the  sun  rose,  that  a  numerous  band  of  peasants  were  collected  with  spades  in  their 
hands,  waiting  to  be  hired  for  the  day  to  work  in  the  surrounding  fields.  This  custom 
struck  me  as  a  most  happy  illustration  of  our  Saviour's  parable,  particularly  when, 
passing  by  the  same  place  late  in  the  day,  we  still  found  others  standing  idle,  and  re- 
membered his  words, '  Why  stand  ye  here  all  the  day  idle  ?'  as  most  applicable  to 
their  situation,  for  on  putting  the  very  same  question  to  them  they  answered  us, '  Be- 
cause no  man  hath  hired  us.' " 

t  Thus  Bernard,  in  a  passage  (In  Cant.,  Serm.  14,  4)  containing  many  interesting 
allusions  this  parable  :  Ille  [Judseus]  pacto  conventionis,  ego  placito  voluntatis  innitor. 


140  THE  LABOURERS  IN  THE  VINEYARD. 

At  the  third,  at  the  sixth,  and  at  the  ninth  hour, — at  nine  in  the 
morning,  at  midday,  and  at  three  in  the  afternoon,*  he  again  went  into 
the  market-place, f  and  those  whom  he  found  there  disengaged,  sent  into 
his  vineyard. — "  And  ahout  the  eleventh  hour  he  went  out  and  found 
others  standing  idle,  and  saith  unto  them,  Why  stand  ye  here  all  the  day 
idle?''''  All  activity  out  of  Christ,  all  labour  that  is  not  labour  in  his 
Church,  is  in  his  sight  a  standing  idle.  "  They  say  unto  him,  Because 
no  man  hath  hired  us.''  There  was  a  certain  amount  of  rebuke  in  the 
question,  which  it  is  intended  that  this  answer  shall  clear  away  ;  for  it 
belongs  to  the  idea  of  the  parable,  that  it  shall  be  accepted  as  perfectly 
satisfactory.  It  is  not  then  in  a  Christian  land,  where  men  grow  up 
under  sacramental  obligations,  with  the  pure  word  of  God  sounding  in 
their  ears,  that  this  answer  could  be  given — or  at  least,  only  in  such 
woeful  cases  as  that  which  our  own  land  now  presents,  where  in  the 
bosom  of  the  Church  multitudes  have  been  allowed  to  grow  up  ignorant 
of  the  blessing  which  her  communion  affords,  and  the  responsibilities  it 
lays  upon  them  ; — and  even  in  their  mouths  there  would  only  be  a  par- 
tial truth  in  the  answer,  "  No  man  hath  hired  us  ;"  since  even  they  can- 
not be  altogether  ignorant  of  their  Christian  vocation.  It  would  only  be 
when  the  kingdom  of  God  is  first  set  up  in  a  land,  enters  as  a  new  and 
hitherto  unknown  power,  that  sinful  men  with  full  truth  could  answer, 
"  No  manhath  hired  us, — if  we  have  been  living  in  disobedience  to  God, 
it  has  been  because  we  were  ignorant  of  him, — if  we  were  serving 
Satan,  it  was  because  we  knew  no  other  master,  because  we  knew  not 
that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  living  for  God  and  for  his  glory,  and 
bringing  forth  fruit  to  the  honour  of  his  name." 

Yet  while  thus  the  excuse  which  the  labourers  in  the  parable  plead, 
appertains  not  to  them  who  growing  up  within  the  Church,  have  de- 
spised to  the  last,  or  nearly  to  the  last,  God's  repeated  biddings  to  go  work 

*  These  would  not, except  just  at  the  equinoxes,  be  exactly  the  hours,  for  the  Jews, 
as  well  as  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  divided  the  natural  day,  that  between  sunrise  and 
sunset,  into  twelve  equal  parts,  (John  xi.  9,)  which  parts  must  of  course  have  been 
ccJnsiderably  longer  in  summer  than  in  winter  ;  for  though  the  difference  between  the 
longest  and  the  shortest  day  is  not  so  great  in  Palestine,  as  with  us,  yet  is  it  by  no 
means  trifling  ;  the  longest  day  is  of  U*"  12™  duration,  the  shortest  of  Q*"  48"",  with  a 
diflference  therefore  of  4''  24™,  so  that  an  hour  on  the  longest  day  would  be  exactly 
22""  longer  than  an  hour  on  the  shortest.  The  equinoctial  hours  did  not  come  into 
use  until  the  fourth  century.  (See  the  Diet,  of  Gr.  and  Eom.  Antt.,  s.  v.  Horn,  p. 
485.)  Probably  the  day  was  also  divided  into  the  four  larger  parts  here  indicated,  just 
as  the  Roman  night  into  four  watches,  and  indeed  the  Jewish  no  less  :  the  four  divisions 
of  the  latter  are  given  in  a  popular  form,  Mark  xiii.  35.  (See  Sciioettgen's  Ilor. 
J/e6.,v.  l,p.  136.) 

t  Maldonatus :  Totum  mundum  qui  extra  Ecclesiam  est. 


THE  LABOURERS  IN  THE  VINEYARD.  14^ 

in  his  vineyard — while  the  unscriptural  corollary  cannot  be  appended  to 
the  pa'rable,*  that  it  matters  little  at  what  time  of  men's  lives  they  enter 
heartily  upon  the  service  of  God,  how  long  they  despise  his  vows  and 
obligations  which  have  been  upon  them  from  the  beginning  ;  yet  one 
would  not  deny  that  there  is  such  a  thing  even  in  the  Christian  Church 
as  men  being  called, — or  to  speak  more  correctly,  since  they  were  called 
long  before, — as  men  obeying  the  calling  and  entering  on  God's  service, 
at  the  third,  or  sixth,  or  ninth,  or  even  the  eleventh  hour.  Only  the  case 
of  such  will  be  parallel  not  I0  that  of  any  of  these  labourers,  at  least  in 
regard  of  being  able  to  make  the  same  excuse  as  they  did,  but  rather  to 
that  of  the  son,  who  being  bidden  to  go  work  in  his  father's  vineyard, 
refused,  but  afterwards  repented  and  went  ;  (Matth.  xxi.  28 ;)  and  such 
an  one,  instead  of  excusing  and  clearing  himself  as  respects  the  past, 
which  these  labourers  do,  will  on  the  contrary  have  deep  repentance  in 
his  heart,  while  he  considers  all  his  neglected  opportunities  and  the  long- 
continued  despite  which  he  has  done  to  the  Spirit  of  grace.  Yet  while 
thus  none  can  plead,  "  No  man  hath  hired  us,"  in  a  land  where  the 
Christian  faith  has  long  been  established,  and  the  knowledge  jpf  it  brought 
home  unto  all  men,  the  parable  is  not  therefore  without  its  application  in 
such  ; — since  there  will  be  there  also  many  entering  into  the  Lord's 
vineyard  at  different  periods,  even  to  a  late  one,  of  their  lives,  and  who, 
truly  repenting  their  past  \mprofitablencss,  and  not  attempting  to  excuse 
it,  may  find  their  work,  be  it  for  a  long  or  a  short  while,  graciously  ac- 
cepted now,  and  may  share  hereafter  in  the  full  rewards  of  the  kingdom. 

*  The  author  of  a  modern  Latin  essay,  De  Sera  Resipiscentid,  anxious  to  rescue 
this  part  of  ihe  parable  from  the  dangerous  abuse  to  which  it  is  often  subjected,  observes 
that  it  should  have  been  otherwise  constructed,  if  such  a  doctrine  were  to  be  drawn 
from  it :  Oportuisset  dixisse  regnum  ooelorum  simile  est  homini  egresso  alto  mane,  ad 
conducendum  operarios  in  vineam  suam.  Invenit  tales  quibus  fecit  maxima  promissa, 
sed  isti  haec  rejecerunt,  praeferentes  manere  in  foro  ad  ludendum  et  compotandum.  Re- 
versus  est  hora  tertia,  eadem  illisobtulit,  et  instantius  eos  rogavit,sed  absque  fructu  .  .  . 
Idem  fecil  hora  sexta  et  nona,  ipsius  autem  oblationes  et  promissiones  semper  fuerunt 
in  utiles.  Illi  quin  etiam  ipsum  male  exceperunt,  ipsique  proterve  dixerunt,  quod  nol- 
lent  pro  eo  laborare.  Ipse  ne  sic  quidem  ofTensus,  reversus  est,  cixm  non  nisi  una  diei 
hora  superesset,  eandemque  obtulit  summam  qukm  mane.  Il!i  tunc  videntes  quod 
summam  tantam  lucrari  possent  labore  momentaneo,  tandem  passi  sunt  hoc  sibi  per- 
euaderi,  spectantes  maxime  quod  dies  fere  transactus  foret  ante  suum  in  vineam  ad- 
ventum.  Augustine  {Serm.  87,  c.  6)  has  the  same  line  of  thought :  Numquid  enim 
et  illi,  qui  sunt  ad  vineam  conducti,  quando  ad  iilos  exibat  paterfamilias,  ut  conduceret 
quos  invenit  hora  tertia  ....  dixerunt  illi  ;  Exspecta,  non  illuc  imus  nisi  hora  sextA  ? 
aut  quos  invenit  hora  sexla  dixerunt  ;  Non  imus  nisi  hora  nona  ....  Omnibus  enim 
tantumdem  daturus  est:  quare  nos  amplius  fatigamur  ?  Quid  ille  daturus  sit  et  quid 
facturus  sit,  penes  ipsum  consilium  est.  Tu  quando  vocaris,  veni.  Compare  Gregory 
Nazanxi.,  Orat.  40,  c.  20,  against  those  who  used  this  parable  as  an  argument  for 
deferring  their  baptism. 


142  THE  LABOURERS  IN  THE  VINEYARD. 

Foi'  in  truth  time  belongs  not  to  the  kingdom  of  God.  Not  "  How 
much  hast  thou  done  ?"  but  "  What  art  thou  now  ?"  will  be  the  great 
question  of  the  last  day.  Of  course  we  must  never  forget  that  all  which 
men  have  done  will  greatly  aflect  what  they  are ;  yet  still  the  parable  is 
a  protest  against  the  whole  quantitative  appreciation  of  men's  works,  (the 
Romanist,)  as  distinct  from  the  qualitative,  against  all  which  would  make 
the  works  the  end  and  man  tlie  means,  instead  of  the  man  the  end,  and 
the  works  the  means — against  that  scheme  which,  however  uncon- 
sciously, lies  at  the  root  of  so  many  of  the  confusions  in  our  theology  at 
this  day.  * 

"  So  when  evemvas  come,  the  lord  of  the  vineyard  saith  ujilo  his  steward, 
Call  the  labourers,  and  give  them  their  hire,  heginning  from  the  last  unto 
thefrst.'^  In  bidding  his  steward  to  pa)'  his  labourers  the  same  evening, 
he  acted  consistently  with  the  merciful  command  of  the  law  which  en- 
joined concerning  the  hired  servant,  "  At  his  day  thou  shalt  give  him 
his  hire,  neither  shall  the  sun  go  down  upon  it,  for  he  is  poor,  and 
setteth  his  heart  upon  it."  (Deut.  xxiv.  15.  See  Lev.  xix.  13  ;  Job. 
vii.  2  ;  Mai.  iii.  5  ;  Jam.  v.  4  ;  Tob.  iv.  14.)  Christ  is  the  steward,  or 
the  overseer  rather,  set  over  all  God's  house.  (Heb.  iii.  6  ;  John  v.  27; 
Matth.  xi.  27.)  The  whole  economy  of  salvation  has  been  put  into  his 
hands,  and  in  this,  of  course,  the  distribution  of  rewards.  In  obedience 
to  the  householder's  commands  the  labourers  are  called  together ;  the 
last  nired,  those  who  came  in  without  any  agreement  made,  receive  a 
full  penny.  Here  is  encouragement  for  those  that  have  delayed  to  en- 
ter on  God's  service  till  late  in  their  lives — not  encouragement  to  delay, 
for  we  everywhere  find  in  Scripture  a  blessing  resting  on  early  piety — 

*  This  mechanical  as  opposed  to  the  dynamic  idea  of  righteousness,  is  carried  to 
the  greatest  perfection  of  all  in  the  Chinese  theology.  Thus  in  that  remarkable  Livre 
des  recompenses  et  des^eines,  the  mechanic,  or  to  speak  more  truly,  the  arithmetic 
idea  of  righteousness,  comes  out  with  all  possible  distinctness.  For  example,  p.  124  : 
Pour  dcvenir  immortcl,  il  faut  avoir  amasse  trois  mille  merites,  et  huit  cent  actions 
vertucuses.  How  glorious,  on  the  other  hand,  are  Thauler's  words  upon  the  way  in 
which  we  may  have  restored  to  us  "  the  years  which  the  canker-worm  has  eaten" 
(Joel  ii.  2.5)  :  Libet  hie  qucerere  quo  pacto  deperditum  tempus  unquam  recuperare 
quis  possit,  cum  nullum  sit  tam  breve  et  velox  temporis  momentum,  quod  non  totum 
cum  omni  virtuteac  facultatc  nostrA  Deo  crcalori  deboamus.  Scd  hie  in  parte  consil- 
ium sanissimum  prieslatur.  Avcrtat  se  quisque  cum  omnibus  tam  supremis  quum  in- 
fimis  viribus  suis  ab  omni  loco  et  tempore,  seque  in  illud  Nunc  ffiternitatis  recipiat, 
ubi  Deus  essentialiter  in  stabili  quodam  Nunc  existit.  Ibi  neque  prseterituni  aliquid 
est,  neque  futurum.  Ibi  principium  et  finis  universi  temporis  prEEsentia  adsunt.  Ibi, 
in  Deo  scilicet,  deperdita  omnia  reperiuntur.  Et  qui  in  consuetudinem  ducunt  ssepius 
in  Deum  se  immergere  alque  in  ipso  commorari,  hi  nimium  fiunt  locupletes,  immo 
plura  inveniunt  quum  deperdere  queant....Denique  et  neglecta  omnia  atque  deperdita 
in  ipso  quoque  Dominica}  passionis  prcciosissimo  thesauro  rcperire  ac  recuperare  licet. 


THE  LABOURERS  IN  THE  VINEYARD.  ^43 

but  encouragement  now  to  work  heartily,  and  with  their  might.  It  is  a 
great  mistake  to  think  that  misgivings  concerning  the  acceptance  of 
their  work  will  make  men  work  the  more  strenuously  ;  on  the  contrary, 
nothing  so  effectually  cuts  the  nerves  of  all  exertion;  but  there  is  that 
in  this  part  of  the  parable  which  may  help  to  remove  such  misgivings 
in  those  who  would  be  most  likely  to  feel  them :  it  encourages  them  to 
labour  in  hope ;  they  too  shall  be  sharers  in  the  full  blessings  of  Christ 
and  of  his  salvation. 

It  may  be  securely  inferred,  that  all  between  the  last  and  the  first 
hired  received  the  penny  as  well ;  though  it  is  the  case  of  the  first  hired 
alone  which  is  brought  forward,  as  that  in  which  the  injustice,  as  the 
others  conceived  it,  appeared  the  most  striking.  To  assume,  as  so  many 
have  done,  Chrysostom,  Maldonatus,  Hammond,  Waterland,  and  of  late 
Olshausen,  that  these  first  hired  had  been  doing  their  work  negligently 
by  comparison,  while  the  last  hired,  such  for  instance  as  a  Paul,  whom 
Origen  in  this  view,  and  quoting  1  Cor.  xv.  10,  suggests,  had  done  it 
with  their  might,  and  had  in  fact  accomplished  as  much  in  their  hour  as 
the  others  in  their  day,  is  to  assume  that  of  which  there  is  not  the  slight- 
est trace  in  the  narrative.  And  more  than  this,  such  an  assumption  ef- 
fectually blunts  the  point  of  the  parable,  which  lies  in  this  very  thing, 
that  men  may  do  and  suffer  much,  infinitely  more  than  others,  and  yet 
be  rejected,  while  those  others  are  received, — that  the  first  may  be  last 
and  the  last  first.  It  is  not  indeed  strange  that  a  Rationalist  interpreter 
like  Kuinoel  should  thus  explain  it ;  for  in  fact  the  whole  matter  is  thus 
taken  out  of  the  spiritual  world,  and  brought  down  to  the  commonest 
region  of  sense ;  since  if  one  man  does  as  much  work  in  one  hour  as 
another  in  twelve,  it  is  only  natural  that  he  should  receive  an  equal  re- 
ward. Every  difficulty  disappears, — except  indeed  this,  how  the  Lord 
should  have  thought  it  worth  his  while  to  utter  a  parable  for  the  justify- 
ing so  very  ordinary  a  transaction  ;  or  if  he  did,  should  have  omitted  to 
state  that  very  thing  which  formed  the  justification.  But  in  truth  this 
view  exactly  brings  us  back  to  the  level,  from  which  to  raise  us  the 
parable  was  expressly  spoken — we  have   a  Jewish,*  instead  of  an  evan- 

*  Singularly  enough,  exactly  such  a  one  is  quoted  by  Lightfoot  and  others  from  the 
Talmud  ;  it  is  concerning  a  celebrated  Rabbi,  who  died  at  a  very  early  age,  and  is  as 
follows  ;  "  To  what  was  R.  Bon  Bar  Chaija  like  ?  To  a  king  who  hired  many  la- 
bourers, among  whom  there  was  one  hired,  who  performed  his  task  extraordinarily  well. 
What  did  the  king  ?  He  took  him  aside  and  walked  with  him  to  and  fro.  When 
even  was  come,  those  labourers  came,  that  they  might  receive  their  hire,  and  he  gave 
him  a  complete  hire  with  the  rest.  And  the  labourers  murmured,  saying, '  We  have 
laboured  hard  all  the  day,  and  this  man  only  two  hours,  yet  he  hath  received  as  much 
wages  as  we.'     The  king  saith  to  them,  '  He  hath  laboured  more  in  those  two  hours. 


144  THE  LABOURERS  IN  THE  VINEYARD. 

gelical,  parable,   an   affirmation  that  the   reward   is  not  of  grace   but 
of  debt, — the  very  untruth  which  it  is  meant  to  gainsay. 

When  those  first  hired  received  the  same  sum  as  the  others  and  no 
more,  "  they  murmured  against  the  good  man  of  the  house,  saying,  These 
last  have  wrought  hut  one  hour,  and  thou  hast  made  them  equal  unto  us, 
which  have  borne  the  burden  and  heat*  of  the  day.^'  These  other,  they 
would  say,  have  been  labouring  not  merely  a  far  shorter  time,  but  when 
they  entered  on  their  tasks  it  was  already  the  cool  of  the  evening,  when 
toil  is  no  longer  oppressive,  while  we  have  borne  the  scorching  heat  of 
the  middle  noon.  But  here  the  perplexing  dilemma  meets  us.  Either 
these  are  of  the  number  of  God's  faithful  people, — how  then  can  they 
murmur  against  him,  and  grudge  against  their  fellow-servants  ?  or  they 
are  not  of  that  number, — what  then  can  we  understand  of  their  having 
laboured  the  whole  day  through  in  his  vineyard,  and  actually  carrying 
away  at  last  the  penny,  the  reward  of  eternal  life  ? — for  it  is  a  very  un- 


than  you  in  the  whole  day.'  So  R.  Bon  plied  the  law  more  in  eight  and  twenty  years 
than  another  in  an  hundred  years."  This  parable  appears  in  the  Spicilegium  of  L.  Ca- 
pellus,  p.  28,  in  an  altered  shape. — Von  Hammer  (Fundgruben  d.  Orients,  v.  1,  p  157) 
has  a  curious  extract  from  the  Sura,  or  collection  of  Mahomet's  traditional  sayings, 
which  looks  like  a  distorted  image  of  our  parable.  The  Jew,  the  Christian,  the  Ma- 
hommedan  are  likened  to  three  different  bands  of  labourers,  hired  at  different  periods 
of  the  day,  at  morning,  at  mid-day,  and  afternoon.  The  latest  hired  received  in  the 
evening  twice  as  much  as  the  others.  It  ends  thus :  "  The  Jews  and  Christians  will 
complain  and  say, '  Lord,  thou  hast  given  two  carets  to  these  and  only  one  to  us.'  But 
the  Lord  will  say,  '  Have  I  wronged  you  in  your  reward  V  They  answer,  '  No.' 
'  Then  learn  that  the  other  is  an  overflowing  of  my  grace.'"  See  the  same  with  imma- 
terial differences  in  Gerock's  Christol.  d.  Koran,  p.  141  ;  and  Mohler  (Verm.  Schrift., 
v.  1,  p.  355,)  mentions  that  when  seeking  for  prophetic  intimations  of  their  faith  in  our 
Scriptures,  they  make  distinct  reference  to  this  parable,  and  its  successive  bands  of  labour- 
ers.— Mr.  Greswell  quotes  a  remarkable  passage  from  Josephus,  {Aiitt.  Jud.,  20.  9.  7,) 
which  proves  that  such  a  dealing  as  that  of  the  householder,  was  not  without  a  very  re- 
markable precedent  in  those  very  days.  The  Jewish  historian  expressly  says,  that 
Ananus,  (the  Annas  of  the  New  Testament,)  paid  the  workmen  who  were  employed 
in  the  rebuilding  or  beautifying  of  the  temple  a  whole  day's  pay,  even  though  they 
should  have  laboured  hut  a  single  hour. 

*  The  Kaiauiv,  which  word  is  used  in  the  LXX.  for  the  dry  burning  east  wind,  so 
fatal  to  all  vegetable  life :  '•  the  wind  from  the  wilderness,"  (Hos.  xiii.  15,)  of  which 
Jerome  says  {Com.  in  Os.,  1.  3,  c.  11)  :  Kauffufa,  i.  e.  ariditatem,  sive  ventum  uren- 
tem,  qui  contrarius  floribus  est,  et  germinantia  cuncta  disperdit.  It  has  much  in  com- 
mon with,  though  it  has  not  altogether  so  malignant  a  character  as,  the  desert  wind 
Sam  or  Samiel,  to  which  modern  travellers  attribute  yet  more  destructive  effects, 
speaking  of  it  as  at  times  fatal  to  the  life  of  man  ;  and  wliose  effects  Venema  {Comrn. 
in  Ps.  xci.  6),  thus  describes:  Penetrat  ventus,  venenatis  particulis  mixtus,  testu  Suo 
venenato  in  viscera,  et  prcBsentissimum  ac  dolorificum  adfert  exitium.  Subito  corpora 
faede  afficiuntur  ac  putrescunt.     See  also  Gebser,  Der  Brief  des  Jakobus,  p.  41. 


THE  LABOURERS  IN  THE  VINEYARD.  ^45 

natural  way  of  escaping  the  difficulty,  to  understand  "  Take  that  which 
is  thine"  as  meaning, — Take  the  damnation  which  belongs  to  thee,  and 
is  the  just  punishment  of  thy  pride  and  discontent.  Thcophylact  and 
others  strive  to  mitigate  as  much  as  possible  the  guilt  of  their  murmur- 
ing, and  make  it  nothing  more  than  the  expression  of  surprise  and  ad- 
miration *  which  will  escape  some,  at  the  unexpected  position  which 
others,  of  perhaps  small  account  here,  will  occupy  in  the  future  king- 
dom of  glory. f  But  the  expression  of  their  discontent  is  too  strong,  and 
the  rebuke  which  it  calls  out  too  severe,  to  allow  of  any  such  explaining 
of  their  dissatisfaction.  Better  to  say  that  there  is  no  analogy  to  be 
found  for  this  murmuring  in  the  future  world  of  glory — and  only  where 
there  is  a  great  admixture  of  the  old  man  in  the  present  world  of  grace. 
There  is  here  rather  a  teaching  by  contraries ;  it  is  saying,  Since  you 
cannot  conceive  such  a  spirit  as  that  here  held  up  before  you,  and  which 
you  feel  to  be  so  sinful  and  hateful,  finding  place  in  the  perfected  king- 
dom of  God,  check  betimes  its  beginnings — check  all  inclinations  to  look 
grudgingly  at  your  brethren  who,  having  in  times  past  grievously  de- 
parted from  God,  have  now  found  a  place  besides  yourselves  in  his  king- 
dom, and  are  sharers  in  the  same  spiritual  privileges,:}:  or  to  look  down 
upon  and  despise  those  who  occupy  a  less  important  field  of  labour,  who 
are  called  in  the  providence  of  God  to  endure  and  suffer  less  than  your- 
selves ;  check  all  inclinations  to  pride  yourselves  on  your  own  doings, 
as  though  they  gave  you  a  claim  of  right  upon  God,  instead  of  accept- 
ing all  of  the  free  mercy  and  undeserved  bounty  of  God,  and  confessing 
that  you  as  well  as  others  must  be  saved  entirely  by  grace. 

With  regard  to  the  murmurers  actually  receiving  their  penny,  it  is 
ingeniously  remarked  by  a  Romish  expositor,  that  the  denarius  or  penny 
was  of  different  kinds  ;  there  was  the  double,  the  treble,  the  fourfold; 
that  of  brass  or  rather  copper,  of  silver,  and  of  gold.  The  Jew  (for  he 
applies  the  parable   to  Jew  and   Gentile)  received   what  was   his,  his 

*   Bellarmine :   Admirationem  potius  quam  queiimoniam  significare  videtur. 

t  The  explanation  given  by  Gregory  the  Great  (Horn.  19,  in  Evang.)  is  of  the  same 
kind,  though  wiih  particular  reference  to  the  Saints  and  Patriarchs  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment :  Quia  antiqui  patres  usque  ad  adventuni  Domini  ducti  ad  regnum  non  sunt,  .  .  . 
hoc  ijjsum  munnurasse  est ;  quod  et  recte  pro  percipiendo  regno  vixerunt,  et  tamen  diu 
ad  percipiendum  regnum  dilati  sunt.     Origen  in  the  same  spirit  quotes  Heb.  xi.  39,40. 

t  There  are  many  and  interesting  points  of  comparison,  as  Jerome  observes,  be- 
tween this  parable  and  that  of  the  Prodigal  Son  ;  and  chiefly  between  the  murmuring 
labourers  in  this,  and  the  elder  brother  in  that.  They  had  borne  the  burden  and 
heat  of  the  day — he  had  served  his  father  these  many  years :  they  grudged  to  see  the 
labourers  of  the  eleventh  hour  made  equal  with  themselves — he  to  see  the  Prodigal  re- 
ceived into  the  full  blessings  of  his  father's  house  ;  the  lord  of  the  vineyard  remon- 
strates with  them  for  their  narrow-heartedness,  and  in  like  manner  the  father  with 
him. 


146  THE  LABOURERS  IN  THE  VINEYARD. 

penny  of  tlio  moaner  metal,  his  earthly  reward,  and  with  that  went  his 
way  ;  but  the  Gentile  the  golden  penny,  the  spiritual  reward,  grace  and 
glory,  admission  into  the  presence  of  God.  Ingenious  as  this  notion  is, 
of  course  no  one  will  for  an  instant  accept  it  as  a  fair  explanation  of  the 
difficulty,  and  yet  it  may  suggest  valuable  considerations.  The  penny 
is  very  different  to  the  different  receivers — though  ohjeclively  the  same, 
suhjeciively  is  very  different ;  it  is  in  fact  to  every  one  exactly  what  he 
will  make  it.*  What  the  Lord  said  to  Abraham,  he  says  unto  all,  "  I 
am  thy  exceeding  great  reward,"  and  he  has  no  other  reward  to  impart 
to  any  save  only  this,  namely  himself.  To  see  him  as  he  is,  this  is  the 
reward  which  he  has  for  all  his  people,  the  penny  unto  all ;  but  they 
whom  these  murmuring  labourers  represent,  had  been  labouring  for 
something  else  besides  the  knowledge  and  enjoyment  of  God,  with  an 
eye  to  some  other  reward,  to  something  on  account  of  which  they  could 
glory  in  themselves  and  glory  over  others.  It  was  not  merely  to  have 
much  which  they  desire,  but  to  have  7nore  than  others, — not  to  grow 
together  with  the  whole  body  of  Christ,  but  to  get  before  and  beyond 
their  brethren  | — and  the  penny  then,  because  it  was  common  to  all, 
did  not  seem  enough — while    in   fact   it   was  to  each  what  he  would 

*  Thus  Aquinas,  in  answer  to  the  question  whether  there  will  be  degrees  of  glory 
in  the  future  world,  replies  that  in  one  sense  there  will,  in  another  there  will  not :  for, 
he  adds,  Contingit  aliquem  perfectius  frui  Deo  quam  alium  ex  eo  quod  est  melius  dispo- 
situs  vel  ordinatus  ad  ejus  fruitionem  ; — and  again  ;  Virtus  erit  quasi  inaterialis  dispo- 
sitio  ad  mensuram  gratim  et  gloriee  suscipiendae.  This  is  one  vision  of  God  ;  but  there 
are  very<lifferent  capacities  for  enjoying  that  vision,  as  is  profoundly  expressed  in  Dan- 
te's Paradiso,  hy  the  circles  concentric,  but  ever  growing  smaller  and  thus  nearer  to  the 
centre  of  light  and  life.  Augustine  {Enarr.  in  Fs.  Ixxii.  1)  carries  yet  further  the 
view  of  the  one  vision  of  God  for  all :  he  compares  it  to  the  light  which  gladdens  the 
healthy  eye  but  torments  the  diseased  (non  mutatis  sed  mutatum).  It  was  also  a  fa- 
vourite notion  with  the  mystics  that  God  would  not  put  forth  a  two-fold  power  to  pun- 
ish and  reward,  but  the  same  power  acting  differently  on  different  natures, — as,  to  use 
their  own  illustration,  the  same  heat  hardens  the  clay  and  softens  the  wax.  The 
Zend-Avesta  supplies  a  parallel:  All,  it  is  there  said,  in  the  world  to  come,  will  have 
to  pass  through  the  same  streatn  ;  but  this  stream  will  be  as  warm  milk  to  the 
righteous,  while  to  the  wicked  it  will  be  as  molten  brass. 

t  The  true  feeling  is  expressed  by  Augustine  :  Htereditas  in  qua  cohseredes  Christi 
sumus,  non  minuitur  multitudine  filiorum,  nee  fit  angustius  numerositate  coha;redum. 
Sed  tanta  est  multis  quanta  paucis,  tania  singulis  quanta  omnibus ;  and  in  a  sublime 
passage,  De  Lib.  Arbit.,  1.  2,  c.  14,  where  of  Truth,  the  heavenly  bride,  he  exclaims : 
Omnes  amatores  suos  nuUo  modo  sibi  invidos  recipit,  et  omnibus  communis  est  et 
singulis  casta  est :  and  by  Gregory,  who  says :  Qui  facibus  invidiae  carere  desiderat, 
illam  caritatem  appetat,  quam  numerus  possidentium  non  angustat.  The  same  is 
beautifully  expressed  by  Dante,  Purgat.  15,  beginning  : — 

Com'  esser  puote  ch'un  ben  distributo 

In  pill  posseditor,  faccia  piii  ricchi 

Di  se,  che  se  da  pochi  c  posseduto? 


THE  LABOURERS  IN  THE  VINEYARD.  247 

make  it.  For  if  the  vision  of  God  constitute  the  blessedness  of  the 
future  world,  then  they  whose  spiritual  eye  is  most  enlightened,  will 
drink  in  most  of  his  glory  ;  then,  since  only  like  can  know  like,  all  ad- 
vances which  are  here  made  in  humility,  in  holiness,  in  love,  are  a  pol- 
ishing of  the  mirror  that  it  may  reflect  more  distinctly  the  divine  image, 
a  purging  of  the  eye  that  it  may  see  more  clearly  the  divine  glory,  an 
enlarging  of  the  vessel  that  it  may  receive  more  amply  of  the  divine 
fulness  ;  and,  on  the  contrary,  all  pride,  all  self-righteousness,  all  sin  of 
every  kind,  whether  it  stop  short  with  impairing,  or  end  by  altogether 
destroying,  the  capacities  for  receiving  from  God,  is  in  its  degree  a 
staining  of  the  mirror,  a  darkening  of  the  eye,  a  narrowing  of  the  ves- 
sel.*  In  the  present  case,  where  pride  and  envy  and  self-esteem  had 
found  place,  darkening  the  eye  of  the  heart,  as  a  consequence  the  re- 
ward seemed  no  reward, — it  did  not  appear  enough  ;")■  instead  of  be- 
ing exactly  what  each  was  willing,  or  rather  had  prepared  himself  to 
make  it. 

"  But  he  answered  one  of  them,"  probably  him  who  was  loudest  and 
foremost  in  the  expression  of  his  discontent,  "  and  said,  Friend,^  I  do  thee 
no  wrong  ;  didst  thou  not  agree  with  me  for  a  jjeimy  .?"  "  Friend  "  is 
commonly  a  word  of  address,  as  it  would  be  among  ourselves,  from  a 
superior  to  an  inferior,  and  in  Scripture  is  a  word  of  an  evil  omen,  see- 
ing that  besides  the  present  passage,  it  is  the  compellation  used  to  the 
guest  that  had  not  a  wedding  garment,  (Matt,  xxi.,)  and  to  Judas  when 
he  came  to  betray  his  Master. — "  I  do  thee  no  wrong  ;"  he  justifies  his 
manner  of  dealing  with  them,  as  well  as  his  sovereign  right  in  his  own 
things.  They  had  put  their  claim  on  the  footing  of  right,  and  on  that 
footing  they  are  answered  ; — "  Take  that  thine  is,  and  go  thy  loay  ;"  and 
again,  "  Is  thine  eye  *  evil  becaitse  I  am  good  ?  so  long  as  I  am  just  to 

*  Bellarmine  (De  ceter.  Felic.  Sanct.,\.  5)  :  Denarius  vitam  aeternam  significat: 
sed  quemadmodum  idem  sol  clarius  conspicitur  ab  aquila  quam  ab  aliis  avibus,  et  idem 
ignis  magis  calefacit  proximos  quam  remotos,  sic  in  eadem  aeterna  vita  clarius  videbit, 
et  jucundius  gaudebit  unus  quam  alius. 

t  As  the  heathen  moralist  had  said  :  Nulli  ad  aliena  respicienti,  sua  placent  ; — 
and  again  :   Non  potest  quisquam  et  invidere  et  gratias  agere. 

t  'EraTps:  in  the  Vulgate,  Amice  :  but  Augustine  (Serm.  87,  c.  3,)  Sodalis,  which 
is  better.  Our  "  fellow,"  as  now  used,  would  contain  too  much  of  contempt  in  it, 
though  else  it  would  give  the  original  with  the  greatest  accuracy. 

§  Envy  is  ever  spoken  of  as  finding  its  expression  from  the  eye,  Deut.  xv.  9  ;  I 
Sam.  xviii.  9,  ("  Saul  eyed  David :")  Prov.  xxiii.  6  ;  xxviii.  22  ;  Tob.  iv.  7  ;  Sirac. 
xiv.  10  ;  xxxi.  13  ;  Mark  vii.  22.  There  lies  in  the  expression  the  belief,  one  of  the 
widest  spread  in  the  world,  of  the  eye  being  able  to  put  forth  positive  powers  of  mis- 
chief Thus  in  Greek  the  d<p0a\ji6s  PduKams  and  0aaKalvttv  =  (pOoveiv  ;  in  Italian,  the 
mal-occhio  ;  in  French,  the  mauvais-ceil.     Persius :   Urentes  oculos.      See  Becker's 


148  THE  LABOURERS  IN  THE  VINEYARD. 

you,  may  I  not  be  good*  and  liberal  to  them."  The  solution  of  the  dif- 
ficulty  that  these  complainers  should  get  their  reward  and  carry  it  away 
with  them,  has  been  already  suggested, — namely  that,  according  to  the 
human  relations,  on  which  the  parable  is  founded,  and  to  which  it  must 
adapt  itself,  it  would  not  have  been  consistent  with  equity  to  have  made 
them  forfeit  their  own  hire,  notwithstanding  the  bad  feeling  which  they 
displayed.  Yet  we  may  say  their  reward  vanished  in  their  hands,  and 
the  sentences  which  follow  sufficiently  indicate,  that  with  God  an  abso- 
lute forfeiture  might  follow,  nay  must  necessarily  follow,  where  this 
grudging,  unloving,  proud  spirit  has  come  to  its  full  head  ;  for  it  is  said 
immediately  after,  "  So  the  last  shall  be  first,  and  the  first  last." 

Many  expositors  have  been  sorely  troubled  how  to  bring  these  words 
into  agreement  with  the  parable  ;  for  in  it  first  and  last  seem  all  put  upon 
the  same  footing,  while  here,  in  these  words,  a  complete  change  of  place 
is  asserted  ; — those  who  seemed  highest,  it  is  declared  shall  be  placed  at 
the  lowest,  and  the  lowest  highest ;  compare  too  Luke  xiii.  30,  where 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  total  rejection  of  the  first,  the  unbelieving 
Jews,  accompanied  with  the  receiving  of  the  last,  the  Gentiles,  into  cove- 
nant, is  declared.  Origen,  whom  Maldonatus  follows,  finds  an  explana- 
tion of  the  difficulty  in  the  fact  that  the  last  hired  are  the  first  in  order  of 
payment ;  but  this  is  so  trifling  an  advantage,  that  the  explanation  must  be 
rejected  as  quite  unsatisfactory.  The  circumstance  of  the  last  hired  being 
first  paid  is  evidently  introduced  merely  for  the  convenience  of  the  nar- 
ration; if  the  first  hired  had  been  first  paid,  and,  as  was  natural,  had 
then  gone  their  way,  they  would  not  have  been  present  to  see  that  the 
others  had  obtained  the  same  remuneration  as  themselves,  and  so  would 
have  had  no  opportunity  of  expressing  their  discontent.  Neanderf  finds 
the  difficulty  of  reconciling  the  parable  with  the  words  which  introduce 
and  finish  it  so  great,  that  he  proposes  a  desperate  remedy,  and  one  under 
the  frequent  application  of  which  we  should  lose  all  confidence  in  the 
trustworthiness,  not  to  speak  of  the  inspiration,  of  the  Gospel  narration. 
He  thinks  the  sentences  and  the  parable  to  have  been  spoken  on  diirerent 
occasions,  and  only  by  accident  to  have  been  here  brought  into  connex- 
ion ;  and  asserts  that  one  must  wholly  pervert  this  so  weighty  parable  to 
bring  it  through  forced  artifices  into  harmony  with  words  which  are 
alien  to  it.     But  what  has  been  observed  above  may  furnish  a  sufficient 

Charikles,  v.  2,  p.  291.  We  have  on  the  oiher  hand  the  uyaOoj  o/ieaX/.oj,  the  un- 
grudging eye.     (Sirac.  xxxii.  10  ;  LXX.) 

*  The  same  opposition  between  dyadoi  and  <5iVaios  finds  place,  Rom.  v.  7,  which 
indeed  is  only  to  be  explained  by  keeping  fast  hold  of  the  opposition  between  the 
words. 

t  Lehen  Jesu,  p.  196,  note. 


THE  LABOURERS  IN  THE  VINEYARD. 


149 


answer;  if  that  be  correct,  the  saying  is  not  merely  in  its  place  here, 
but  is  absolutely  necessary  to  complete  the  moral,  to  express  that  which 
the  parable  did  not,  and  according  to  the  order  of  human  affairs,  could 
not  express,  namely,  the  entire  forfeiture  which  would  follow  on  the 
indulgence  of  such  a  temper,  as  that  displayed  by  the  murmurers  and 
complainers. 

There  is  more  difficulty  with  the   other  words,    "  Many  he  called, 
hutfeio  chosen."*     They  are  not  difficult  in  themselves,  but  difficult  on 
account  of  the  position  which  they  occupy  :  the  connexion  is  easy  and 
the  application  obvious,  when  they  occur  as  the  moral  of  the  Marriage 
of  the  King's  Son,  Matt.  xxii.  14,  but  here  they  have  much  perplexed 
interpreters,  such  at  least,  as  will  not  admit  the  entire  rejection  from  the 
heavenly  kingdom  of  those  represented  by  the  murmuring  labourers. 
Some  explain  them.  Many  are  called,  but  few  have  the  peculiar  favour 
shown  to  them,  that  though  their  labour  is  so  much  less,  their  reward 
should  be  equal  :  thus  Olshausen,   who  makes  the   "  called"  and  the 
"chosen"  alike  partakers  of  final  salvation,  but  that  by  these  terms  are 
signified  higher  and  lower  standings  of  men  in  the  kingdom  of  God. f 
These  last  hired  had,  in  his  view,  laboured  more  abundantly,  but  this 
their  more  abundant  labour  was  to  be  referred  to  a  divine  election,  so 
that  the  name  "chosen"  or  elect  becomes  them  well,  to  whom  such  espe- 
cial grace  was  given.     But  this  supposition  of  larger  labour  upon  their 
part  mars,  as  has  been  already  noted,  the  whole  parable,  and  is  by  no 
means  to  be  admitted.      Others  have  supposed  that  the   "called"  may 
refer  to  some  not  expressly  mentioned  in  the  parable,  who  had  refused 
altogether    to    work    in    the  vineyard,   in  comparison   with   whom  the 
"  choseji,"  those  who  at  any  hour  had  accepted  the  invitation,  were  so 
few,  that  the  Lord  could  not  bear  that  any  of  these  should  be  shut  out  from 
his  full  reward.     But  the  easiest  interpretation  seems  to  be, — Many  are 
called  to  work  in  God's  vineyard,  but  few  retain  that  temper  of  spirit, 
that  humility,  that  entire  submission  to  the  righteousness  of  God,  that 
utter  denial  of  any  claim  as  of  right  on  their  own  part,  which  will  allow 
them  in  the  end  to  be  partakers  of  his  reward. :{: 

*  It  is  not'often  that  there  is  so  felicitous  an  equivalent  proverb  in  another  language 
as  that  which  the  Greek  supplies  here  ;  and  which  Clement  of  Alexandria  has  more 
than  once  adduced  on  the  score  of  its  aptness  as  a  parallel : 

IIoXXoi  rot  vap6riKOij>6potf  navpoi  £i  re  0aKj(oi. 

t  Thus  Wolf  also  (Curm,  in  loc.) :  KXrtTov;  et  txXeicToOj  hie  non  tanquam  specie 
sibi  oppositos  considerandos  esse,  sed  tanquam  oppositos  gradu  felicitatis  atque  digni- 
tatis. 

t  The  term,  reward,  as  applied  to  the  felicity  which  God  will  impart  to  his  people, 
sometimes  offends,  while  it  seems  to  bring  us  back  to  a  legal  standing  point,  and  to 


150  THE  TWO  SONS. 


PARABLE  X. 


THETWOSONS. 

Matthew  xxi.  28-32. 

Our  Lord  had  put  back  with  another  question  the  question  with  which 
his  adversaries  had  hoped  either  to  §i]eiice  liim,  if  he  should  decline  to 
answer,  or  to  obtain  matter  of  accusation  against  him,  if  he  should  give 
the  answer  which  they  expected  ;  and  now  he  becomes  himself  the  as- 
sailing party,  and  commences  that  series  of  parables,  in  which,  as  in  a 
glass  held  up  before  them,  they  might  see  themselves,  the  impurity  of 
their  hearts,  their  neglect  of  the  charge  laid  upon  them,  their  contempt 
of  the  privileges  afforded  them,  the  aggravated  guilt  of  that  outrage 
against  himself  which  they  were  already  meditating  in  their  hearts.  Yet 
even  these,  wearing  as  they  do  so  severe  and  threatening  an  aspect,  are 

imply  a  claim  as  of  right,  not  merely  of  grace,  upon  man's  part  ;  but  since  it  is  a  scrip- 
tural term,  (Matt.  v.  12,  vi.  1  ;  Luke  vi.  35  ;  2  John  8  ;  Rev.  xxii.  12,)  there  is  no 
reason  why  we  should  shrink  from  using  it,  even  as  we  find  our  Church  has  not 
shrunk  from  its  use.  Thus  in  one  of  our  Collects  we  pray  "  that  we  plenteously  bring- 
ing forth  the  fruit  of  good  works  may  of  thee  be  plenteously  rewarded" — and  in  the 
Baptismal  Service,"  everlastingly  rewarded."  Yet  at  the  same  time  we  should  clearly 
understand  what  we  mean  by  it.  Aquinas  says :  Potest  homo  apud  Deum  aliquid 
mereri  non  quidem  secundfim  absolutam  justitiae  rationem,  sed  secundftm  divinae  ordi- 
nationis  quandam  praesuppositionem  ;  and  this  is  a  satisfactory  distinction  ;  the  reward 
has  relation  to  the  work,  but  this  is,  as  the  early  protesters  against  the  papal  doctrine 
of  merits  expressed  it,  according  to  a  justitia  promissionis  divinae,  not  a  jusiiiia  retribu- 
tionis.  There  is  nothing  of  a  meritum  condignum,  though  Bellarmine  sought  to  press 
this  parable  into  service,  in  support  of  such.  (See  Gerhard's  Loc.  TheolL,  loc.  18,  c. 
8,  §  14.)  When  it  is  said,  "  God  is  not  unrighteous  to  forget  your  work  and  labour 
of  love,"  it  is  only  saying  in  other  words,  he  is  faithful  (ovk  SJikos  =  niaTos).  Com- 
pare 1  John  i.  9  ;  1  Cor.  x.  13  ;  1  Pet.  iv.  19.  By  free  promise  he  makes  himself  a 
debtor:  Augustine  {Serm.  110,  c.  4):  Non  debendo  sed  promittendo  debitorem  se 
Deus  fecit.  In  the  reward  there  is  a  certain  retrospect  to  the  work  done,  but  no  pro- 
portion between  them,  except  such  as  may  have  been  established  by  the  free  appoint- 
ment of  the  Giver,  and  the  only  claim  which  it  justifies  is  upon  his  promise.  "  He  is 
faithful  that  promised" — this  and  not  any  other  thing  must  remain  always  the  ground 
of  all  expectations  and  hopes  :  and  what  these  expectations  are  to  be,  and  what  they 
are  not  to  be,  it  is  the  main  purpose  of  this  parable  to  declare.  Bernard  declares  ex- 
cellently the  spirit  in  which  man  ought  to  work,  and  in  which  God  will  accept  the  work 
when  he  says:  Vera  caritas  mercenaria  non  est,  quamvis  merces  earn  sequatur. 


THE  TWO  SONS.  151 

not  words  of  defiance,  but  of  earnest,  tenderest  love, — spoken,  if  it  were 
yet  possible  to  turn  them  from  their  purpose,  to  save  them  from  the  fear- 
ful sin  they  were  about  to  commit,  to  win  thc7n  also  for  the  kingdom  of 
God.  The  first,  that  of  the  Two  Sons,  goes  not  so  deeply  into  the  mat- 
ter as  the  two  that  follow,  and  is  rather  retrospective,  while  those  other 
are  prophetic  also. 

"  But  what  think  ye? — A  certain  man  had  tioo  sons."     Here,  as  at 
Luke  XV.  II,  are  described,  under  the  image  of  two  sons  of  one  father, 
two  great  moral  divisions  of  men,  under  one  or  other  of  which  might  be 
rano-ed   almost   all   with  whom  our  blessed  Lord   in  his  teaching  and 
preaching  came  in  contact.     Of  one  of  these  classes  the  Pharisees  were 
specimens  and  representatives, — though  this  class  as  well  as  the  other 
will  exist  at   all   times.     In   this   are   included  all  who  have  sought  a 
righteousness  through  the  law,  and  by  help  of  it  have  been  kept  in  the 
main  from  open  outbreakings  of  evil.     In  the  second  class,  of  which  the 
publicans  and  harlots  stand  as  representatives,  are   contained  all  who 
have  thrown  off"  the  yoke,  openly  and  boldly  transgressed  the  laws  of 
God,  done  evil  with  both  hands  earnestly.     Now  the  condition  of  those 
first  is  of  course  far  preferable ;   that   righteousness  of  the  law  better 
than  this  open  unrighteousness; — provided  always  that  it  is  ready  to 
giye  place  to  the  righteousness  of  faith  when  that  appears, — provided 
that  it  knows  and  feels  its  own  incompleteness  ;  and  this  will  always  be 
the  case,  where  the  attempt  to  keep  the  law  has  been  truly  and  honestly 
made  ;  the  law  will  then  have  done  its  work,  and  have  proved  a  school- 
master to  Christ.     But  if  this  righteousness  is  satisfied  with  itself, — and 
this  will  be,  where  evasions  have  been  sought  out  to  escape  the  strict- 
ness of  the  requirements  of  the  law  ;  if,  cold  and  loveless  and  proud,  it 
imagines  that  it  wants  nothing,  and  so  refuses  to  submit  itself  to  the 
righteousness  of  faith,  then  far  better  that  the  sinner  should  have  had 
his  eyes  opened  to  perceive  his  misery  and  guilt,  even  though  it  had 
been  by  means  of  manifest  and  grievous  transgressions,  than  that  he 
should  remain  in  this  ignorance  of  his  true  state,  of  that  which  is  lack- 
ing  to  him  still ; — ^just  as  it  would  be  better  that  disease,  ^/'m  the  frame, 
should  take  a  decided  shape,  so  that  it  might  be  felt  and  acknowledged 
to  be  disease,  and  then  met  and  overcome, — than  that  it  should  be  se- 
cretly lurking  in,  and  pervading,  the  whole  system,  and  because  secret- 
ly,  its  very   existence  denied   by  him  whose  life   it  was  threatening. 
From  this  point  of  view  St.  Paul  speaks,  Rom.  vii.  7-9,  and  the  same 
lesson  is  taught  us  in  all  Scripture — that  there  is  no  such  fault  as  count- 
ing we  have  no  fault.     It  is  taught  us  in  the  bearing  of  the  elder  son 
towards  his  father  and  returning  brother  in  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal 
Son ;  and  again,  in  the  conduct  of  the  Pharisee  who  had  invited  Jesus 


152  THE  TWO  SONS. 

to  his  house,  in  his  demeanour  to  him  and  to  the  woman  "  which  was  a 
sinner  j"  and  in  his  who  went  up  into  the  temple  to  pray.  (Luke  xviii. 
10.     Compare  v.  29-32.) 

"  And  he  came  to  the  first  and  said,  Son,  go  icork  to-day  in  my  vine- 
yard." This  command  was  the  general  summons  made  both  by  the 
natural  law  in  the  conscience,  and  also  by  the  revealed  law  which 
Moses  gave,  for  men  to  bring  forth  fruit  unto  God.  This  call  the  pub- 
licans and  harlots,  and  all  open  sinners,  manifestly  neglected  and  de- 
spised. The  son  first  bidden  to  go  to  the  work,  "  answered  and  said,  I 
will  not.''*  The  rudeness  of  the  answer,  the  total  absence  of  any  at- 
tempt to  excuse'  his  disobedience,  are  both  characteristic  ;  he  does  not 
take  the  trouble  to  say,  like  those  invited  guests,  "  I  pray  thee,  have  me 
excused  ;"  but  flatly  refuses  to  go  ;  he  is  in  short  the  representative  of 
careless,  reckless  sinners. — And  he  came  to  the  second  and  said  likewise, 
and  he  answered  and  said,  I  go,  47>."f  The  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  as 
professing  to  be  zealous  for  the  law,  set  themselves  in  the  way  as  though 
they  would  fulfil  the  commands  ;  this  their  profession  was  like  the  se- 
cond son's  promised  obedience.  But,  as  the  Lord  on  a  later  occasion 
lays  to  their  charge,  that  they  said  and  did  not,  (Matt,  xxiii.  2,)  even  as 
he  quotes  the  prophet  Isaiah  as  having  long  before  described  them  truly, 
(Matt.  XV.  8,)  "  This  people  draweth  nigh  unto  me  with  their  mouth, 
and  honoureth  me  with  their  lips,  but  their  heart  is  far  from  me,"  so 
was  it  here.  When  the  marked  time  arrived,  when  it  was  needful  to 
take  decisively  one  side  or  the  other,  when  the  Baptist  came  unto  them 
"in  the  way  of  righteousness,^''  and  summoned  to  earnest  repentance,  to 
a  revival  of  God's  work  in  the  hearts  of  the  entii'e  people,  then  many  of 
those  hitherto  openly  profane  were  baptized,  confessing  their  sins;  and 
like  the  son  who  at  first  contumaciously  refused  obedience  to  his  father's 
bidding,  '■^repented  and  went:"  while  on  the  other  hand,  the  real  un- 
riuhteousness  of  the  Pharisees,  before  concealed  under  show  of  zeal  for 
the  law,  was  evidently  declared  :  professing  willingness  to  go,  they  yet 
"  went  not." 

When  the  Lord  demands  of  his  adversaries,  "  Whether  of  the  tivain 
did  the  will  of  his  father  ?"  they  cannot  profess  inability  to  solve  this 
question,  as  they  had  done  that  other;  (ver.  27  ;)  they  arc  obliged  now 

*  Gerhard  :  Vita  peccatorum  nihil  ahud  est,  quam  reaHs  quidam  clamor  et  professio, 
Nolumus  facere  Dei  voluntatein. 

t  '£y(o,  Kvptc.  The  readings  here  are  very  various,  vai  Kvpie,  vTzayo  Kvpu,  and 
many  more,  which  however  may  be  easily  traced  up  to  transcribers  wanting  to  amend 
a  phrase  which  they  did  not  quite  understand,  and  which  seemed  incomplete  : — Tropeio- 
ftat,  direpx"!"",  OT  some  such  word  must  be  supplied.  See  1  Sam.  iii.  4,  6;  Gen.  xxii. 
1,  LXX. 


THE  TWO  SONS.  153 

to  give  a  reply,  though  that  reply  condemned  themselves.  "  They  say 
unto  Mm,  The  first ;" — not,  of  course,  that  he  did  it  absolutely  well,  but 
by  comparison  with  the  other.  Whereupon  the  Lord  immediately  makes 
the  application  of  the  words  which  have  been  reluctantly  wrung  from 
them,  "  Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  that  the  ■publicans  and  harlots  go  into  the 
kingdom  of  God  before  you.^^  When  he  says,  they  "  go  before  you,"  or 
take  the  lead  of  you,  he  would  indicate  that  the  door  of  hope  was  not  yet 
shut  upon  them,  that  they  were  not  yet  irreversibly  excluded  from  that 
kingdom  * — the  others  indeed  had  preceded  them,  but  they  might  still 
follow,  if  they  would .  Some  interpreters  lay  an  emphasis  on  the  words, 
"  in  the  loay  of  righteousness,''^  as  though  they  are  brought  in  to  ag- 
gravate the  sin  of  the  Pharisees — as  though  Christ  would  say,  "  The 
Baptist  came,  a  pattern  of  that  very  righteousness  of  the  law,  in  which 
you  profess  to  exercise  yourselves.  He  did  not  come,  calling  to  the 
new  life  of  the  Gospel,  of  which  I  am  the  pattern,  and  which  you  might 
have  misunderstood  ;  he  did  not  come,  seeking  to  put  new  wine  into 
the  old  bottles;  but  he  came,  himself  fulfilling  that  very  idea  of  right- 
eousness which  you  pretended  to  have  set  before  yourselves,  that  which 
consisted  in  strong  and  marked  separation  of  himself  from  sinners,  and 
earnest  asceticism  ;  and  yet  you  were  so  little  hearty  in  the  matter,  that 
for  all  this  he  found  no  acceptance  among  you,  no  more  acceptance  than 
I  have  found.  You  found  fault  with  him  for  the  strictness  of  his  man- 
ner of  life,  as  you  find  fault  with  me  for  the  condescension  of  mine, — 
and  not  merely  did  you  reject  him  at  first,  but  afterward  when  his 
preaching  bore  manifest  fruit  in  the  conversion  of  sinners,  t\'hen  God 
had  thus  set  his  seal  to  it,  when  '  the  publicans  and  harlots  believed  him' 
even  then  you  could  not  be  provoked  to  jealousy  ;  "  Ye,  when  ye  had 
seen  it,  repented  not-\  afterward,  that  ye  might  believe  him." 

In  many  copies,  and  some  not  unimportant  ones,  it  is  the  son  that  is  first 

*  But  he  does  not  affirm  more,  so  that  there  need  be  no  difficulty  here  on  account 
of  the  Pharisees,  or  the  greater  part  of  them,  never  having  followed  ;  the  word  (Trpuu- 
yovaiv)  does  not  imply  that  they  will  follow,  it  merely  declares  that  the  others  have  en- 
tered first,  leaving  it  open  to  them  to  follow  or  not.  Compare  the  still  stronger  use  of 
vpuTOTOKos,  (Matt,  i.25,)  where  there  were  none  to  come  after. 

t  Ov  iicTCjieMdriTC — the  word  does  not  in  itself  describe  so  comprehensive  a  change 
as  ixeravudv,  and  as  a  less  expressive  word  is  comparatively  very  seldom  used  in  Scrip- 
ture. MeraixiXeia  does  not  of  necessity  signify  more  ihan  the  after  anxiety  for  a  deed 
done,  which  may  be  felt  without  any  true  repentance  towards  God,  may  be  merely  re- 
morse, such  as  Judas  felt  after  having  betrayed  his  Master,  and  it  is  worthy  of  re- 
mark that  this  very  word /i£ra/:<£X»;e£i<r  is  used  of  him.  (Matt,  xxvii.  .3.)  In  the  pre- 
sent case,  however,  (that  is,  at  ver.  29,)  the  true  ^ic-avotais  meant,  the  change  of  affec- 
tions and  will  and  conduct.  For  a  good  tracing  of  the  distinction  between  the  two 
words,  see  Spanheim's  Duhia  Evang.,  Dub.  9,  v.  3,  p.  16,  seq. 

11 


]^54  THE  WICKED  HUSBANDMEN. 

spoken  to,  who  promises  to  go,  and  afterwards  disobeys,  and  the  second 
who,  refusing  first,  afterwards  changes  his  mind,  and  enters  on  the  work. 
Probably  the  order  was  thus  reversed  by  transcribers,  who  thought  that 
the  application  of  the  parable  must  be  to  the  successive  callings  of 
Jews  and  Gentiles,*  and  that  therefore  the  order  of  their  calling  should 
be  preserved.  But  the  parable  does  not  primarily  apply  to  the  Jew  and 
Gentile,  but  must  be  referred  rather  to  the  two  bodies  within  the  bosom 
of  the  Jewish  people  : — it  is  not  said,  the  Gentiles  enter  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  before  you,  but,  the  publicans  and  harlots ;  while  yet  the  other, 
if  the  parable  had  admitted,  (and  if  it  had  admitted,  it  would  have  required 
it,)  would  have  been  a  far  stronger  way  of  provoking  them  to  jealousy. 
(Rom  X.  21,  22.)  The  other  application  of  the  parable  need  not  indeed 
be  excluded,  since  the  whole  Jewish  nation  stood  to  the  Gentile  world, 
in  the  same  relation  which  the  more  self-righteous  among  themselves  did 
to  notorious  transgressors.  But  it  is  not  till  the  next  parable  that  Jew 
and  Gentile,  in  their  relations  to  one  another,  and  in  their  respective  re- 
lations to  the  kingdom  of  God,  come  distinctly  and  primarily  forward. 


PARABLE  XI. 


THE    WICKED    HUSBANDMEN. 

Matt.  xxi.  33-44  ;  Mark  xii.  1-12  ;  Luke  xx.  9-18. 

The  Lord's  hearers  would  have  been  well  content  that  he  here  should 
have  paused.  But  no ;  he  will  not  let  them  go  :  "  Hear  another  par- 
able,'' as  if  he  would  say,  "  I  have  not   done  with  you  yet ;  I  have  still 

*  This  is  the  view  maintained  by  Origen,  Chrysoslom,  and  Athanasius,  as  also  by 
Jerome,  who  quotes  as  a  parallel  to"  I  go,  sir,"  the  words  of  the  Jews  at  the  giving  of 
the  law,  "  All  that  the  Lord  hath  said  will  we  do,  and  be  obedient."  (Exod.  xxiv.  7.) 
The  Auct.  Oper.  Iinperf.  interprets  it  as  is  done  above,  noting  at  length  the  incon- 
veniences that  attend  the  application  of  it  to  Jew  and  Gentile.  Maldonatus,  who  as- 
sents to  his  interpretation,  affirms  he  is  the  only  ancient  author  that  gives  it, and  is  per- 
plexed how  the  other  should  have  obtained  such  general  reception — but  the  i)?  ijiol  iontX, 
with  which  Origen  introduces  his  explanation,  marks,  that  there  was  another  opinion 
current  in  the  Church  in  his  time  ;  even  as  is  explicitly  stated  by  Jerome  :  Alii  non 
putant  Gentilium  et  JudsBorum  esse  parabolam,sed  simpliciter  peccatorum  et  justorum. 


THE  WICKED  HUSBANDMEN. 


155 


another  word  of  warning  and  rebuke,"  and  to  that  he  now  summons 
them  to  listen.  There  is  this  apparent  difference  between  tlie  accounts 
of  the  several  Evangelists,  that  while  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Mark 
relate  the  parable  as  addressed  to  the  Pharisees,  it  was,  according  to 
St.  Luke,  spoken  to  the  people.  But  the  sacred  narrative  itself  supplies 
the  helps  for  clearing  away  this  slight  apparent  difference,  St,  Luke 
mentioning  the  chief  priests  and  scribes  (ver.  19)  in  a  way  which  shows 
that  they  were  listeners  also ;  and  thus,  being  spoken  in  the  hearing  of 
both  parties,  in  the  mind  of  one  narrator  the  parable  seemed  addressed 
mainly  to  the  people  j  in  that  of  the  others,  to  the  Pharisees. 

The  opening  words  at  once  suggest  a  comparison  with  Isaiah  v. 
1-7  ;  no  doubt  our  Lord  here  takes  up  the  prophecy  there,  the  more 
willingly  building  on  the  old  foundations,  that  his  adversaries  accused 
him  of  destroying  the  law ;  and  not  in  word  only,  but  by  the  whole 
structure  of  the  parable,  connecting  his  own  appearing  with  all  that  had 
gone  before  in  the  past  Jewish  history,  so  that  men  should  look  at  it 
as  part,  indeed  as  the  crowning  and  final  act,  of  that  great  dealing  of 
mercy  and  judgment  which  had  ever  been  going  forward.  The  image 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  a  savine-stock  *  or  as  a  vineyard  f  is  not  peculiar 
to  this  parable,  but  runs  through  the  whole  Old  Testament ;  (Deut. 
xxxii.  32;  Ps.  Ixxx.  8-16;  Isai.  v.  1-7;  xxvii.  1-7;  Jer.  ii.  21; 
Ezek.  XV.  1-6;  xix.  10;)  and  has  this  especial  fitness,  that  no  pro- 
perty was  considered  to  yield  so  large  a  return,  (Cant.  viii.  11,  12,) 
none  was  therefore  of  such  price  and  esteem,  even  as  none  required 
such  unceasing  care  and  attention.:}:  Our  Lord  compares  himself  to 
the  vine  as  the  noblest  of  earthly  plants,  (John  xv.  1,)  and  in  prophecy 
had  been  compared  to  it  long  before.     (Gen.  xlix.  11.) 

*  The  vine-stock  often  appears  on  the  Maccabaean  coins  as  the  emblem  of  Pales- 
tine ;  sometimes  too  the  bunch  of  grapes,  and  the  vine-leaf.  Thus  Deyling  (Obss.  Sac, 
V.  3,  p.  236)  :  Botrus  prseterea,  folium  vitis  et  palma,  ut  ex  nummis  apparet,  symbo- 
lum  erant  Judseae. 

t  Bernard  draws  out  the  comparison  between  the  Church  and  the  vineyard  at 
some  length  (In  Cant.  Ser7ii.,  30) :  In  fide  plantata,  in  caritate  mittit  radices,  defossa 
sarculo  disciplinae,  stercorata  pcenitentium  lacrymis,  rigata  prsedicantium  verbis,  et  sic 
sane  exuberans  vino,  in  quo  est  laetitia,  sed  non  luxuria,  vino  totius  suavitatis,  nuilius 
libidii^.  Hoc  certe  vinum  laetificat  cor  hominis,  hoc  constat  et  angelos  bibere  cum 
laetitia.  Augustine  also  (Serm.  87,  c.  1)  ;  Cultura  ipsius  est  in  nos,  quod  non  cessat 
verbo  suo  extirpare  semina  mala  de  cordibus  nostris,  aperire  cor  nostrum  tanquam 
aratro  sermonis,  plantare  semina  praeceptorum,  exspectare  fructum  Ppietatis.  Cf.  Am- 
brose, Exp.  in  Luc,  1.  9,  c.  29. 

t  It  no  doubt  belongs  to  the  fitness  of  the  image  that  a  vineyard  does,  if  it  is  to 
bring  forth  richly,  require  the  most  diligent  and  never-ceasing  care,  that  there  is  no 
season  in  the  year  in  which  much  has  not  to  be  done  in  it.     Virgil  presses  this  very 


156  THE  WICKED  HUSBANDMEN. 

It  would  not  be  convenient  to  interpret  the  vineyard  here  as  the 
Jewish  church,  since  the  vineyard  is  said  to  be  taken  away  from  the 
Jews  and  given  to  another  nation  ;  and  it  is  evident  that  this  could  not 
be  accurately  said  of  the  Jewish  church.  In  Isaiah,  indeed,  the 
vineyard  is  that  Jewish  church,  and  consistently  with  this,  it  is  de- 
scribed, not  as  transferred  to  others,  but  as  laid  waste  and  utterly  de- 
stroyed, its  hedge  taken  away,  its  wall  broken  down,  all  labour  of  prun- 
ing  or  digging  withdrawn  from  it,  and  the  heavens  themselves  com- 
manded that  they  rain  no  rain  on  it  any  more.  Here,  where  it  is  trans- 
ferred to  other  and  more  faithful  husbandmen,  we  must  rather  under- 
stand by  it  the  kingdom  of  God  in  its  idea,  which  idea  Jew  and  Gentile 
have  been  successively  placed  in  conditions  to  realize.*  Inasmuch 
indeed  as  Israel  according  to  the  flesh  was  the  first  occupier  of  the  vine- 
yard, it  might  be  said  that  the  vineyard  at  that  time  was  the  Jewish 
church  ;  but  this  arrangement  was  only  accidental  and  temporary,  and 
not  of  necessity,  as  the  sequel  abundantly  proved.  They  were  not  iden- 
tified with  the  kingdom  of  God  ;  to  them  indeed  it  was  first  given  to 
realize  that  kingdom,  as  to  these  husbandmen  the  vineyard  was  first 
committed,  but  failure  in  each  case  involved  forfeiture  of  all  privileges 
and  advantages,  with  the  transfer  of  them  to  others. 

The  householder  was  more  than  the  possessor  of  this  vineyard,  he 
had  himseW planted  "  it.  (Exod.  xv.  17.)  The  planting  of  this  spir- 
itual vineyard  found  place  under  Moses  and  Joshua,  in  the  establishing 
of  the  Jewish  polity  in  the  land  of  Canaan.  It  is  described  Deut.  xxxii. 
12-14.  See  Ezek.  xvi.  9-14;  Neh.  ix.  23-25.  But  the  further 
details  of  things  done  for  the  vineyard, — the  hedging  of  it  round  about,f 


sliongly,  in  words  not  unworthy  to  be  kept  in  mind  by  all  to  whom  a  spiritual  vine- 
yard has  been  committed  ;  see  Georg.,  2,  397-419,  beginning— 
Est  etiam  ille  labor  curandis  vitibus  alter, 
Cui  nunquam  exhausli  satis  est :  namque  omne  quotannis 
Terque  quaterque  solum  scindendum,  glebaque  versis 
jEternum  frangenda  bidentibus  ;  omne  levandum 
Fronde  nemus.     Redit  agricolis  labor  actus  in  orbem, 
Atque  in  se  sua  per  vestigia  volvitur  annus. 
And  so  Cato  :  Nulla  possessio  pretiosior,  nulla  majorem  operam  requirit. 
*  Origen  {Comm.  in  'Matth.,  in  loc.)  draws  out  clearly  and  well  the  difterencea 
that  exist  in  this  regard  between  the  parable  in  Isaiah  and  that  recorded  by  the  Evan- 
gelists. 

t  Mr.  Greswell's  observation,  {Exp.  of  the  Par.,  v.  5,  p.  4,)  that  this  fence  (ippay- 
u6i)  is  rather  a  stone  wall  than  a  hedge  of  thorns,  or  of  any  other  living  materials,  I 
should  suppose  most  probably  to  be  quite  correct,  (see  Numb.  xxii.  24  ;  Prov.  xxiv. 
31 ;  Isai.  v.  5,)  though  in  that  last  passage  the  vineyard  appears  to  have  been  provid- 


THE  WICKED  HUSBANDMEN.  I57 

the  digging  the  wine-press,  the  building  the  tower, — are  these,  it  may- 
be asked,  to  have  any  particular  signification  attached  to  them  ? — or  are 
they  to  be  taken  merely  as  general  expressions  of  that  ample  provision 
of  grace  and  goodness  which  God  made  for  his  people?  Storr,  as  usual, 
will  allow  nothing  in  them  at  all  beyond  a  general  expression  of  God's 
provident  care  for  his  Church,  such  as  found  utterance  in  his  words  by 
the  prophet,  "  What  could  have  been  done  more  to  my  vineyard,  that  I 
have  not  done  in  it?  "  (Isai.  v.  4.)  But  even  those  who  like  him  most 
shrink  from  the  interpretation  of  a  parable  except  in  the  gross,  could 
here,  one  might  have  supposed,  scarcely  have  resisted  the  explanation 
of  the  hedging  round  the  vineyard,  which  is  suggested  by  passages  like 
Ephes.  ii.  14,  where  the  law  is  described  as  "  the  middle  wall  of  parti- 
tion"* between  the  Jew  and  Gentile.  By  their  circumscription  through 
the  law,  the  Jews  became  a  people  dwelling  alone,  and  not  reckoned 
among  the  nations.  (Num.  xxiii.  9.)  That  law  was  a  hedge  at  once 
of  separation  and  of  defence,"|"  since  in  keeping  distinct  the  line  of  sepa- 
ration between  themselves  and  the  idolatrous  nations  around  them,  lay 
their  security  that  they  should  enjoy  the  continued  protection  of  God. 
That  protection  is  called  a  wall  of  fire,  (Zech.  ii.  5,)  and  compare  Ps. 
cxxv.  2  ;  Isai.  xxvi.  1 ;  xxvii.  3.  Nor  is  it  unworthy  of  observation, 
that  outwardly  also  Judea,  through  its  geographical  position,  was  hedged 
round — by  the  bounty  of  nature  on  every  side  circumscribed  and  de- 
fended— guarded  on  the  east  by  the  river  Jordan  and  the  two  lakes,  on 
the  south  by  the  desert,  and  mountainous  country  of  Idumsea,  on  the 
west  by  the  sea,  and  by  Anti-Libanus  on  the  north — for  so,  observes 
Vitringa,  had  God  in  his  counsels  determined,  who  willed  that  Israel 
should  dwell  alone. 


ed  with  both.  Yet  one  of  his  grounds  for  this  seems  questionable,  namely,  that  the 
incursions  of  the  enemies  which  threatened  the  vineyard,  the  foxes  (Cant.  ii.  15)  and 
the  wild  boar  (Ps.  Ixxx.  13),  were  not  to  be  effectually  repelled  except  by  fences  made 
of  stone  :  see  Neh.  iv.  3:  and  Virgil  (Georg.,  2,  371),  while  he  is  on  the  very  subject 
of  the  extreme  injury  which  the  various  animals, — (durique  venenum  Dentis  et  admor- 
so  eignata  in  stirpe  cicatrix,) — may  inflict  upon  the  vines,  enjoins  not  the  building  of 
stone  walls,  but  a  careful  keeping  of  the  hedges  as  the  adequate  measure  of  defence, — 
Texendae  sepes  etiam.  The  thorn  fences,  especially  if  formed,  as  is  common  in  the 
East,  of  the  wild  aloe,  would  be  far  more  effectual  for  this  than  any  wall  of  stone.  See 
also  Homer,  II.  18,  564.  The  word  fpayftui  itself  determines  nothing,  as  the  funda- 
mental meaning  of  0f;ufr<7oj  seems  to  be  to  surround  or  enclose  (Passow  :  umgeben, 
einschliessen),  without  itself  determining  in  the  least  how  the  enclosure  shall  be  effected. 

*  Mcfforoii^oi/ roO 0piiy/<oi)  there,  as  (ppayfioi  here. 

t  Ambrose  {Exp.  in  Luc,  1.  9,  c.  24,)  explains  it :  Divinae  custodiae  munitione 
valalvit,  ne  facile  spiritalium  pateret  incursibus  bestiarum  ;  and  Hexaem.,  1.  3,  c.  12  ; 
Circumdedit  earn  velut  vallo  quodam  caelestium  praeceptorum,  et  angelorum  custodia. 


158  THE  WICKED  HUSBANDMEN. 

The  wine-press  *  and  the  tower  f  would  both  be  needful  for  the  com- 
pleteness of  a  vineyard ;  the  latter  not  being  merely  the  ornamental 
building,  the  kiosk  which  belongs  to  the  perfection  of  an  Eastern  garden, 
and  serves  mainly  for  delight,  but  here  serving  as  much  for  use  as  orna- 
ment,— a  place  of  shelter  for  the  watchmen,  who  should  protect  the 
fruits  of  the  vineyard,  and  perhaps  a  receptacle  for  the  fruits  themselves. 
It  is  difficult  satisfactorily  to  point  out  distinct  spiritual  benefits  shadow- 
ed forth  by  these,  or  to  affirm  that  more  is  meant  than  generally  that 

*  Arprof  =  torcular,  in  Mark  vvoXriviov  =  lacus,  in  each  case  a  part  for  the 
whole  ;  the  digging  can  be  applied  strictly  only  to  the  latter,  which  was  often  hol- 
lowed out  of  the  earth  and  then  lined  with  masonry,  as  Chardin  mentions  that  lie 
found  them  in  Persia ;  sometimes  they  were  hewn  out  of  the  solid  rock.  Nonnus 
(Dionys.,  12.  330)  describes,  in  some  spirited  lines,  how  Bacchus  hollowed  out  such 
a  receptacle  from  thence.  In  the  Xiji/oj,  or  press  above,  the  grapes  were  placed,  and 
were  there  crushed  commonly  by  the  feet  of  men,  (Judg.  ix.  27  :  Neh.  xiii.  15  ;  Isai. 
xiii.  3,)  hence  Bacchus  has  the  epithet,  Aijvaroj,  the  wine-press  treader ;  at  the  bottom 
of  this  press  was  a  closely  grated  hole,  through  which  the  juice,  being  expressed, 
ran  into  the  i-iroXfiviov,  (or  vpoXrivtov,  Isai.  v.  3,  LXX.,)  the  vat  prepared  beneath  for 
its  reception,  the  lacus  vinarius  of  Columella. 

t  It  may  be  this  Kvpyo;  was  the  villa  where  at  once  the  fruits  were  kept  and  the 
husbandmen  resided  ;  but  I  should  rather  suppo?e  it  the  tower  of  the  watchmen.  I 
have  seen  in  Spain  temporary  towers  erected  for  them,  at  the  season  when  the  grapes, 
approaching  to  ripeness,  might  tempt  the  passers  by,  which  were  there  the  more  ne- 
cessary, as  often  the  vineyard  lay  open  to  the  road  without  any  protection  what- 
ever. A  scaffolding  was  raised  to  a  considerable  height  with  planks  and  poles,  and 
matting  above  to  defend  from  the  heat  of  the  sun  ;  and  on  the  scaffolding,  which  com- 
manded an  extensive  view  all  round,  a  watcher,  with  a  long  gun,  was  planted.  Cal- 
deron  has  an  Auto,  La  viiia  del  Seiior,  founded  on  this  parable,  and  explains  the  pur- 
pose of  the  tower  exactly  so  : — 

Y  porque  de  la  campana  Assaltando  sus  portillos 

Se  descubran  a  lo  lejos  Robar,  sin  ser  descubiertos 

Sus  ambitos,  sin  que  puedan  Sus  frutos,  para  Atalaya 

Tampoco  los  passageros  La  puse  essa  torre  enmedio. 

This  tower  is  the  diT(jpo(pv\iiKiov  of  Isai.  i.  8,  xxiv.  20,  which  Jerome  explains: 
Specula  quam  custodes  satorum  habere  consueverunt.  Niebuhr  (Beschreib.  v.  Arab., 
p.  138)  says  :  "  In  the  mountainous  district  of  Yemen,  I  saw  here  and  there  as  it 
were  nests  in  the  trees,  in  which  the  Arabs  perched  themselves  to  watch  their  corn- 
fields. In  Tehama,  where  the  trees  were  scarcer,  they  built  for  this  purpose  an 
high  and  light  scaffold."  Ward  (Vieio  of  the  Hindoos,  v.  2,  p.  327,  quoted  by 
Burder)  observes:  "The  wild  hogs  and  buffaloes  [silvestres  uri,  Georg.,  2,  374] 
make  sad  havoc  in  the  fields  and  orchards  of  the  Hindoos  ;  to  keep  them  out,  men 
are  placed  on  elevated  covered  stages  in  the  fields;" — sometimes,  as  a  friend  has 
told  me,  on  mounds  built  with  sods  of  earth  ;  and  the  watchers  are  frequently  arm- 
ed with  slings,  which  they  use  with  great  dexterity  and  effect,  to  drive  away  invad- 
ers of  every  description.  The  Greek  proverb,  yXu^r'  Strwpa,  ^uXa/<oj  ticXtXairdruj,  alludes 
to  the  custom  of  setting  such  watchers  over  a  vintage. 


THE  WICKED  HUSBANDMEN.  X59 

God  provided  his  people  with  all  things  necessary  for  life  and  godliness, 
and  furnished  them  with  fixed  channels  and  reservoirs  of  his  blessings. 
All  the  explanations  which  are  given  of  this  tower  and  this  wine-press* 
appear  fanciful,  and  though  often  ingenious,  yet  no  one  of  them  such  as 
to  command  an  absolute  assent. f 

Having  thus  richly  supplied  his  vineyard  with  all  things  needful,  he 
"  let  it  out  to  husbandmen.'^  These  last  must  be  different  from  the  vine- 
yard which  they  were  to  cultivate,  and  must,  therefore,  be  the  spiritual 
leaders  and  teachers  of  the  people,  while  the  vineyard  itself  will  then 
naturally  signify  the  great  body  of  the  people,  who  were  to  be  instruct- 
ed and  taught,  to  the  end  that,  under  diligent  cultivation,  they  might 
bring  forth  fruits  of  righteousness.!  By  the  letting  out  of  the  vineyard 
to  those,  we  must  understand  the  solemn  committal  which  the  law  made, 
of  this  charge  to  the  priests  and  Levites  ;  their  solemn  commission  is 
recognized  and  pressed  in  such  passages  as  Mai.  ii.  7  ;  Ezek.  xxxiv.  2. 
It  is  worthy  of  observation,  that  the  parable  is  so  constructed  as  to  imply 
that  the  disobedience,  the  contumacy,  the  unprofitableness  of  the  Jews, 
for  were  to  be  looked  at  not  merely  in  the  light  of  common  wickedness,  but 
as  a  breach  of  the  most  solemn  trust, — as  ingratitude  of  the  darkest  dye  ; 
for  no  doubt  it  was  a  great  benefit  to  the  husbandmen  to  be  put  in  posses- 

*  Generally  the  wine-press  is  taken  to  signify  the  prophetic  institution.  Thus 
Irenaeus  {Con.  Har.,  I.  4,  c.  36) :  Torcular  fodit,  receptaculum  prophetic!  Splritus 
praeparavit.  Hilary  (m  Matih.)  :  In  quos  [prophetas]  musti  modo  quaedam  ubertas 
Spiriius  Sancti  ferventis  influeret.     So  Ambrose,  Exp.  in  Luc,  1.  9,  c.  24. 

t  In  the  parallel  passage  in  Isaiah  two  other  principal  benefits  are  recorded, — 
that  the  vineyard  was  on  a  fruitful  hill  (aperlos  Bacchus  amat  coUes,  Virgil,)  sloping 
toward  the  rays  of  the  sun,  and  that  the  stones  were  gathered  out  from  it,  (2  Kin. 
iii.  19,)  the  last  with  allusion  to  the  casting  out  of  the  Canaanites,  that  else  might 
have  proved  stumbling-blocks  for  God's  people.  (Ps.  cxxv.  3.)  With  the  whole  par- 
able Ezek.  xvi.  will  form  an  instructive  parallel.  There  too,  in  the  same  manner, 
although  under  altogether  a  different  image,  the  Lord  upbraids  the  ingratitude  of  his 
people  with  the  enumeration  of  the  rich  provision  which  he  had  made  for  them. 
With  this  description  of  the  ample  furniture  of  the  vineyard  might  be  compared  ver. 
10-12  of  that  chapter,  for  they  too  in  like  manner  are  employed  in  describing  what 
God  did  for  his  people  at  their  coming  out  of  Egypt. 

X  A  friend  who  kindly  looked  over  the  notes  on  some  of  these  parables  before  pub- 
lication has  added  a  note,  which  [  am  sure  every  reader  will  be  glad  I  have  preserv- 
ed ;  he  says:  "I  do  not  absolutely  question  the  truth  of  this  interpretation,  but  it 
seems  to  me  rather  an  escape  from  a  difficulty  which  does  not  exist  more  in  the  par- 
able than  in  all  our  customary  language  about  the  Church.  The  Church  is  both 
teacher  and  taught;  but  the  teachers  are  not  merely  the  ministers  :  the  whole  Church 
of  one  generation  teaches  the  whole  Church  of  another,  by  its  history,  acts,  words, 
mistakes,  &c.  The  Church  existing  out  of  time  an  unchangeable  body,  teaches  the 
members  of  the  Church  existing  in  every  particular  time.  The  whole  subject  requires 
to  be  diligently  examined  and  elucidated." 


160  THE  WICKED  HUSBANDMEN. 

sionof  a  vineyard  so  largely  and  liberally  furnished,  (compare  Neh.  ix. 
25  ;  Deut.  xvi.  11,)  and  every  thing  implies  that  they  had  entered  into 
covenant  with  the  proprietor,  concerning  what  proportion  of  the  fruits 
they  were  to  pay  to  him  in  their  season — even  as  the  Jewish  people 
made  a  solemn  covenant  with  God  at  Horeb,  that  as  he  would  be  their 
God,  so  they  would  be  his  people. 

The  householder  then,  having  thus  intrusted  the  husbandmen  with 
the  keeping  and  cultivation  of  the  vineyard  on  some  certain  terms, 
"went  into  afar  country"  and,  as  St.  Luke  adds,  '■^for  a  long  ivhile." 
At  Sinai,  when  the  theocratic  constitution  was  founded,  and  in  the  mir- 
acles  which  accompanied  the  deliverance  from  Egypt  and  the  bringing 
into  Canaan,  the  Lord  may  be  said  to  have  openly  manifested  himself  to 
Israel,  and  this  done,  to  have  withdrawn  himself  for  a  while,  not  speak- 
ing  to  the  people  again  face  to  face,  (Deut.  xxxiv.  10-12,)  but  waiting 
in  patience  to  see  what  the  law  would  effect, — what  manner  of  works 
the  people,  under  the  teaching  of  their  spiritual  guides,  would  bring 
forth.* 

"  And  when  the  time  of  the  fruit  drew  near,  he  sent  his  servants  to  the 
husbandmen  that  they  might  receive  the  fruits  of  it."  How,  it  may  be 
asked,  are  these  servants  to  be  distinguished  from  the  husbandmen  ? 
Exactly  in  this,  that  the  servants,  that  is,  the  prophets,  and  other  more 
eminent  ministers  of  God  in  his  theocracy,  7oere  sent,  being  raised  up  at 
particular  times,  having  particular  missions, — their  power  lying  in  their 
mission,  while  the  others  were  the  more  regular  and  permanently  estab- 
lished ecclesiastical  authorities,  whose  power  lay  in  the  very  constitution 
of  the  theocracy  itself.f  The  servants  were  sent  to  receive  the  fruits 
of  the  vineyard,  or,  as  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke  have  it,  to  receive  "of 
the  fruit  of  the  vineyard,"X  the  householder's  share  of  the   produce, 

*  Kmhrose  {Exp.  in  iwc,  1.  9,  c.  23) :  Multis  temporibus  abfuit,  ne  praepropera 
videretur  exactio :  nam  quo  indulgentior  liberalitas,  e6  inexcusabilior  pervicacia. 
Theophylact :  h  dTroSnina  tov  Ocov,  n  jiuKpudv^ia.  Bengel :  Innuitur  tempus  divinae  taci- 
turnilatis,  ubi  homines  agunt  pro  arbitrio.     See  Ezek.  viii.  12  ;  Ps.  x.  5. 

t  Bengel:  Servi  sunt  ministri  extraordinarii,  majores:  agricolaB,  ordinarii. 

X  'Afd  TOV  Kapvov — according  to  the  well-known  metayer  system  once  prevalent  over 
great  part  of  Europe,  and  still  known  in  parts  of  France  and  in  Italy  ;  the  two  parties 
would  in  Latin  be  styled  partiarii.  Pliny  {Ep.,  I.  9.  37)  mentions  of  some  of  his  es- 
tates which  had  hitherto  been  very  badly  managed,  that  the  only  way  in  which  he 
could  get  any  thing  from  them,  was  by  letting  them  on  this  system  :  Medendi  una  ra- 
tio si  non  nummo  sed  partibus  locem :  he  was  to  appoint  some  guardians  (exactores 
and  custodes)  to  secure  his  portion  of  the  produce — differing  it  is  probable  only  from 
these  servants,  that  they  were  to  be  permanently  on  the  spot,  to  prevent  fraud,  and  to 
see  that  he  obtained  his  just  share.  Chardin  {Voy.  en  Perse,  v.  5,  p.  384,  Langles 
ed.)  gives  much  information  on  the  terms  upon  which  these  arrangements  are  commonly 


THE  WICKED  HUSBANDMEN.  151 

whatever  that  might  have  been — the  rent  not  being  to  be  paid  in  money, 
but  in  a  fixed  proportion  of  the  fruits.  Olshausen  says  here,  "  These 
fruits  which  are  demanded,  are  in  no  wise  to  be  explained  as  particular 
works,  nor  yet  as  a  condition  of  honesty  and  uprightness,  but  much 
rather  as  the  repentance  and  the  inward  longing  after  true  inward  right- 
eousness, which  the  law  was  unable  to  bring  about.  It  is  by  no  means 
meant  to  be  said  that  the  law  had  not  an  influence  in  producing  upright- 
ness :  it  cuts  off  the  grosser  manifestations  of  sin,  and  reveals  its  hidden 
abomination  ;  so  that  a  righteousness  according  to  the  law,  can  even  un- 
der  the  law  come  forth  as  fruit,  but  this  to  be  sufficing,  must  have  a  sense 
of  the  need  of  a  redemption  for  its  basis.  (Rom.  iii.  20.)  The  servants 
therefore  here  appear  as  those  who  seek  for  these  spiritual  needs,  that 
they  may  link  to  them  the  promises  concerning  a  coming  Redeemer  : 
but  the  unfaithful  husbandmen  who  had  abused  their  own  position,  denied 
and  slew  these  messengers  of  grace." 

The  conduct  of  the  wicked  husbandmen  toward  their  lord's  servants 
is  brought  out  with  more  particularity  in  the  two  later  Gospels  than  in 
the  first.  In  St.  Luke,  the  gradual  growth  of  the  outrage  under  the  sense 
of  impunity  is  distinctly  traced.  When  the  first  servant  came,  they 
**  heat  him  and  sent  him  away  empty  ;"  the  next  they  not  only  beat,  but 
"  entreated  him  shamefully,'"  or  according  to  St.  Mark,  who  defines  the 
very  nature  of  the  outrage,  "  at  him  they  cast  stones,  and  wounded  him 
in  the  head,*  and  sent  him  away  shamefully  handled."     The  expi*ession 

made  in  Persia,  and  proceeds  showing  how  something  like  the  dishonest  and  violent 
breaking  of  the  agreement  which  is  supposed  in  the  parable  might  be  of  frequent  oc- 
currence :  Get  accord,  qui  paroit  un  marche  de  bonne  foi  et  qui  le  devroit  etre,  se  trouve 
neanmoins  une  source  intarissable  de  fraude,  de  contestation,  et  de  violence,  oii  la  jus- 
tice n'est  presque  jamais  gardee,  et  ce  qu'il  y  a  de  fort  singulier  c'est  que  le  seigneur 
est  celui  qui  a  toujours  du  pire,  et  qui  est  lese.  He  then  enters  into  details  of  some  of 
these  frauds  and  violences,  of  which,  it  is  true,  none  reach  the  pitch  which  is  here  sup- 
posed.    See  Du  Cange,  s.  vv.  Medietarius  and  Medietas. 

*  St.  Mark  has  here  (xii.  4)  a  singular  use  of  the  word  Ke<pc\at6ui,  as  to  wound  in 
the  head,  while  yet  it  is  never  elsewhere  used  but  as  to  gather  up  in  one  sum,  as  under 
one  head — of  which  its  more  correct  use,  we  have  a  good  example  in  the  Epistle  of 
Barnabas,  c.  v.,  which  as  bearing  in  another  aspect  upon  this  present  parable,  may  be 
quoted.     It  is  there  said  that  the  Son  of  God  came  in  the  flesh,  iVa  to  riXciov  tmv  hfiap- 

Tiwv  KC<pa\aidJari  toT;  iiw^aaiv  iv  davdro)  Tovi  ■n-fio<pfiTai  avrov.  Passow  seems  hardly  accu- 
rate when  he  says,  s.  v.,  with  allusion,  as  is  evident,  to  this  passage,  Kc^eXaioa  in  N.  T. 
=zKC(pa\i^oj,  todten.  For  it  is  clear  it  does  not  mean  to  decapitate  or  wound  mortally 
on  the  head,  since  they  sent  him  away  on  whom  they  inflicted  this  injury.  We  have 
parallels  in  yao-rpi'^&j,  to  strike  on  the  stomach,  yvaduu),  on  the  cheek.  The  notion  of 
some  that  here  also  it  is,  breviter  vel  summatim  egerunt,  they  made  short  work  of  it, 
or  as  Lightfoot  expresses  it,  alluding  to  the  circumstance  that  the  servant  came  to  de- 
mand payment, — they  reckoned  with  him,  they  squared  accounts  with  him,  (ironically,) 
is  quite  untenable. 


162  THE  WICKED  HUSBANDMEN. 

of  the  original  *  would  seem  to  indicate,  that  in  the  wantonness  of  their 
cruelty  and  pride  these  husbandmen  further  devised  some  insulting  out- 
rages, not  expressly  named  in  the  parable,  against  this  servant,  whereby 
they  might  the  more  plainly  testify  their  scorn  of  the  master — some  out- 
rage, perhaps,  like  Hanun's,  when  he  "  took  David's  servants,  and 
shaved  off  the  one  half  of  their  beards,  and  cut  off  their  garments  in  the 
middle,  and  sent  them  away."  (2  Sam.  x.  4.)  The  third  they  wounded, 
and  cast  out  of  the  vineyard  with  violence, — flung  him  forth,  it  might  be, 
with  hardly  any  life  in  him.  In  the  two  first  evangelists  the  outrage 
reaches  even  to  the  killing  of  some  of  the  subordinate  messengers — in 
St.  Luke's  narration  it  is  perhaps  preferable,  that  this  last  and  worst 
outrage  is  reserved  for  the  son  himself,  though  on  the  other  hand  it  might 
be  said  that  some  of  the  prophets  were  not  merely  maltreated,  but  actu- 
ally put  to  death.  Thus,  if  we  may  trust  Jewish  tradition,  Jeremiah 
was  stoned  by  the  exiles  in  Egypt,  Isaiah  sawn  asunder  by  king  Ma- 
nasseh  ;  and  for  an  ample  historical  justification  of  this  description,  see 
Jer.  xxxvii.  38  ;  1  Kin.  xviii.  13  ;  xxii.  24-27  ;  2  Kin.  vi.  31 ;  xxi.  16 
2  Chron.  xxiv.  19-22;  xxxvi.  16  ;  and  also  Acts  vii.  52  ;  1  Thess.  ii 
15  ;  and  the  whole  passage  finds  a  parallel  in  the  words  of  the  apostle 
(Heb.  xi.  36,)  "  And  others  had  trial  of  cruel  mockings  and  scourg 
ings,  yea  moreover,  of  bonds  and  imprisonment.  They  were  stoned 
they  were  sawn  asunder,  were  tempted,  were  slain  with  the  sword  ;  .  . 
of  whom  the  world  was  not  worthy." 

The  patience  of  the  householder  under  these  extraordinary  provoca- 
tions is  wonderful, — that  he  sends  messenger  after  messenger  for  the  pur- 
pose of  bringing  back,  if  possible,  these  wicked  men  to  a  sense  of  duty, 
and  does  not  at  once  resume  possession  of  his  vineyard,  and  inflict  sum- 
mary vengeance,  as  the  end  proves  that  he  had  power  to  do,  upon  them  : 
and  this  his  patience  is  thus  brought  out  and  magnified,  that  it  may  set 
forth  the  yet  more  wonderful  forbearance  and  long-suffering  of  God  : 
"  Howbeit  I  sent  unto  you  all  my  servants  the  prophets,  rising  early 
and  sending  them,  saying.  Oh,  do  not  this  abominable  thing  that  I  hate." 
(Jer.  xliv.  4.)  "  Nevertheless  they  were  disobedient,  and  rebelled 
against  thee,  and  cast  thy  law  behind  their  backs,  and  slew  thy  prophets 
who  testified  against  them,  to  turn  them  to  thee,  and  they  wrought  great 
provocations."  (Neh.  ix.  26.)  The  whole  confession  made  in  that  chapter 
by  the  Levites  is  in  itself  an  admirable  commentary  on  this  parable. 

"  But  last  of  all  he  sent  unto  them  his  son,"  or  in  the  still  more  affect 
ing  words  of  St.  Mark,  (ver.  6,)     "  Having  yet  therefore  one  son,  his 
well-beloved,  he  sent  him  also  last  unto  them,  saying.  They  will  reverence 

•  ' AireiTTti'kav  rtriyoiiiivov. 


THE  WICKED  HUSBANDMEN.  163 

my  son."  (See  Heb.  i.  1.)  This  was  the  last  and  crowning  effort  of 
divine  mercy,  after  which,  on  the  one  side  all  the  resources  even  of 
heavenly  love  are  exhausted,  on  the  other  the  measure  of  sins  is  per- 
fectly filled  up.  The  description  of  the  son  as  the  only  one,  as  the  well- 
beloved,  marks  as  strongly  as  possible  the  difference  of  rank  between 
him  and  the  servants,  the  worth  and  dignity  of  his  person,  who  only  was 
a  Son  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word  ;*  (see  Heb.  iii.  5,  6  ;)  and  un- 
doubtedly they  who  were  our  Lord's  actual  hearers  quite  understood  what 
he  meant,  and  the  honour  which  in  these  words  he  claimed  as  his  own, 
though  they  were  unable  to  turn  his  words  against  himself,  and  to  accuse 
him  on  the  strength  of  them,  of  making  himself,  as  indeed  he  did  then 
affirm  himself,  the  Son  of  God.  When  the  householder  expresses  his 
conviction,  that  however  those  evil  men  may  have  outraged  his  inferior 
messengers,  they  will  stand  in  awe  of  and  reverence  his  son,  it  is  hardly 
worth  while  to  make  a  difficulty  here,  as  some  have  done,  from  the  fact 
that  he  whom  the  householder  represents  must  have  fully  known  from 
the  beginning  what  treatment  his  Son  would  receive  from  those  to  whom 
he  sent  him  : — not  that  there  is  not  a  difficulty,  but  that  it  is  the  same 
difficulty  which  runs  through  every  thing,  that  of  the  relations  in  which 
man's  freedom  and  God's  foreknowledge  stand  to  one  another  f — and  it 
does  not  in  truth  come  out  more  strongly  here  than  it  does  everywhere 
else,  and  therefore  requires  not  to  be  especially  treated  of  in  this  place. 
"  But  ivhen  the  husbandmen  saw  the  son,  they  said  among  themselves, 
This  is  the  heir  ;  come,  let  us  kill  him,  and  let  us  seize  on  his  inheritance." 
Compare  John  xi.  47-53,  and  the  counsels  of  Joseph's  brethren  against 
him,  Gen.  xxxvii,  19;  "When  they  saw  him  afar  off,  even  before  he 
came  near  unto  thegi,  they  conspired  against  him  to  slay  him,  and  they 
said  one  to  another.  Behold  this  dreamer  cometh.  Come  now  therefore, 
let  us  slay  him,  ....  and  we  shall  see  what  will  become  of  his  dreams." 
As  they,  thinking  to  defeat  the  purpose  of  God  concerning  their  younger 
brother,  helped  to  bring  it  to  pass,  so  the  Jewish  rulers  were  the  instru- 
ments to  fulfil  that  purpose  of  God  concerning  Christ  which  they  meant 

*  This  has  been  often  observed  by  the  early  Church  writers  when  proving  the  di- 
vinity of  the  Son  ;  as  by  Ambrose  {De  Fide,  1.  5,  c.  7) :  Vide  quia  ante  servos,  postea 
filium  nominavit ;  ut  scias  quod  Deus  Filius  unigenitus  secundilm  divinitatis  potentiam 
nee  nomen  habet,  nee  consortium  commune  cum  servis.  Cf.  Irenjeus,  Con.  Hcer.,  1. 4, 
c.  36,  §1. 

+  Jerome:  Quod  autem  dicit,  Verebuntur  forte  filium  meum,  non  de  ignorantia  di- 
citur:  Quid  enim  nesciat  Paterfamilias,  qui  hoc  loco  Deus  intelligitur  ?  Sed  semper 
ambigere  Deus  dicitur,  ut  libera  voluntas  homini  reservetur.  Cf.  Ambose,  De  Fide, 
1.  5,  c.  17,  1^ 


164  THE  WICKED  HUSBANDMEN. 

to  bring  to  nothing.*  (Acts,  iii.  18  ;  iv.  27,  28.) — "  This  is  the  heirj^' 
he  for  whom  the  inheritance  is  meant,  and  to  whom  it  will  in  due  course 
rightfully  arrive — not  as  in  earthly  relations,  by  the  death,  but  by  the 
free  appointment,  of  the  actual  possessor.  For  it  is  evident  that  "heir" 
is  not  here  used,  as  it  often  laxly  is,  a  synonyme  for  lord,"!"  but  the  idea 
of  one  who  is  not  in  present  possession  of  a  good,  but  hereafter  is  com- 
ing to  it,  must  be  held  fast.  (Compare  Phil.  ii.  9-11.)  Christ  is  "  heir 
of  all  things,"  (Heb.  i.  2,)  not  as  he  is  the  Son  of  God,  for  the  Church 
has  always  detected  Arian  tendencies  lurking  in  that  interpretation,  but 
as  he  is  the  Son  of  man.  So  Theodoret :  "  The  Lord  Christ  is  heir  of 
all  things,  not  as  God,  but  as  man  ;   for  as  God  he  is  maker  of  all." 

It  is  the  heart  which  speaks  in  God's  hearing ;  the  thought  of  men's 
heart  is  their  true  speech  and  therefore  here  given  even  as  though  it 
were  the  words  of  their  lips  ; — the  husbandmen  say,  "  Come,  let  us  kill 
him;''''  not  that  we  are  to  imagine  that  the  Pharisees  even  in  their 
secretest  counsels  ever  trusted  one  another  so  far,  or  dared  to  look  their 
own  wickedness  so  directly  in  the  face,  as  thus  to  say,  '=  This  is  the 
Messiah,  therefore  let  us  slay  him."  But  they  desired  the  inheritance 
should  be  theirs,  they  desired  that  what  God  had  intended  should  only 
be  transient  and  temporary,  enduring  till  the  times  of  reformation,  should 
be  made  permanent, — and  this,  because  they  had  prerogatives  and  pri- 
vileges under  the  imperfect  system,  which  would  cease  when  the  more 
perfect  scheme  was  brought  in,  or  rather  which,  not  ceasing,  would  yet 
be  transformed  into  other  higher  privileges,  for.  which  they  had  no 
care.  The  great  master-builder  was  about  to  take  down  the  temporary 
scaffolding  which  had  now  served  its  end,  and  this  his  purpose  they  the 
under-builders  were  setting  themselves  to  resist,:}:  ajad  were  determined, 
at  whatever  cost,  to  resist  to  the  uttermost. — And  further,  may  we  not 
see  in  this  thought  of  killing  the  heir,  and  seizing  on  the  inheritance  and 
making  it  their  own,  an  allusion  to  the  principle  of  all  self-righteousness, 
which  is  a  seizing  on  the  divine  inheritance,  a  seeking  to  comprehend 
and  take  down  into  self  that  light,  which  is  only  light  while  it  is  recog- 
nized as  something  above  self,  and  whereof  man  is  permitted  to  be  a 
partaker,  but  which  he  neither  himself  originated,  nor  yet  can  ever  pos- 
sess  in  fee,  or  as  his  own,  or  otherwise  than  as  a  continual  receiver  of  it 
from  another;  a  ligiit  too,  which,  by  the  very  success  of  the  attempt  to 
take  it  into  his  own  possession,  is  as  inevitably  lost  and  extinguished,  as 

*  Augustine  :  Ut  possiderent,  occiderunt,  et  quia  occiderunt,  perdiderunt. 
t  Just  as  in  Latin  oftentimes  hzeres  =  dominus. 

t  Hilary :  Consilium  colonorum  et  haeriditatis  occiso  hierede  presumptio,  spes  inanis 
est  gloriam  Leges  perempto  Christo  posse  retineri.  • 


THE  WICKED  HUSBANDMEN.  ^55 

would  be  a  ray  of  our  natural  light  if  we  succeeded  in  cutting  it  off 
from  its  luminous  source — a  truth  of  which  angels  and  men  have  made 
mournful  experience. 

"  And  they  caught  him  and  cast  him  out  of  the  virieyard,  and  slew 
him."  All  three  narrators  describe  him  as  thus  "  cast  out  of  the  vine- 
yard,"— by  which  we  are  reminded  of  him  who  "  suffered  without  the 
gate."  (Heb,  xiii.  12,  13  ;  John  xix.  17.)  By  that,  as  in  the  Penta- 
teuch by  the  exclusion  from  the  camp,  was  signified  the  cutting  off  from 
the  people  of  God,  and  from  all  share  in  their  blessings.  Thus  when 
Naboth  perished  on  charges  of  blasphemy  against  God  and  the  king, 
that  is,  for  theocratic  sins,  "  they  carried  him  forth  out  of  the  city,  and 
stoned  him  with  stones,  that  he  died."*  (1  Kin.  xxi.  L3.)  In  St.  Mark 
it  would  rather  seem  that  having  slain  the  son  first,  they  afterwards  cast 
out  the  body  :  they  denied  it  the  common  rites  of  sepulture  :  they  flung 
it  forth  to  show  what  they  had  done,  and  as  much  as  to  say,  that  was 
their  answer  to  the  householder's  demands. 

Having  brought  the  tale  of  these  husbandmen's  guilt  to  a  conclusion, 
and  prophesied  to  the  Jewish  rulers  the  wickedness  which  in  a  few  days 
they  should  accomplish, "j"  Christ  proceeds  to  ask,  "  When  the  lord,  there- 
fore, of  the  vineyard  cometh,  what  will  he  do  unto  those  hushandmen  ?" 
It  is  very  observable  how  the  successive  generations,  who  for  so  many 
centuries  had  been  filling  up  the  measure  of  the  iniquity  of  Israel,  are 
considered,  throughout  the  entire  parable,  but  as  one  body  of  husband- 
men. And  this,  because  God's  truth  is  everywhere  opposed  to  that  shal- 
low nominalism  which  would  make  such  a  word  as  "  nation  "  a  dead  ab- 
straction, a  mere  convenient  help  to  the  understanding.  God  will  deal 
with  nations  as  indeed  being,  as  having  a  living  unity  in  themselves,  as 
in  fact  bodies,  and  not  as  being  merely  convenient  mental  terms  to  ex- 
press certain  aggregations  of  individuals.  Unless  this  were  so,  all  con- 
fession  of  our  fathers'  sins  would  be  mere  mockery,  and  such  passages 
as  Matt,  xxiii.  32-35,  without  any^ meaning  at  all.     This  is  one  of  the 


*  The  act  of  Naboth  dying  for  his  vineyard  has  been  often  adduced  as  a  prophecy, 
not  by  word,  but  by  deed,  of  the  death  of  Christ  and  the  purpose  of  that  death.  Thus, 
Ambrose  addresses  the  vineyard  of  the  Lord,  the  Church  which  he  has  purchased  with 
his  own  blood  (£a:p.  in  iwc,  1.  9,  c.  33)  :  Salve  vinea  tanto  digna  custode :  te  non 
unius  Nabuthae  sanguis,  sed  innumerabilium  prophetarum  et  (quod  est  amplius)  pretio- 
sus  curor  Domini  consecravit.  lUe  .  .  .  temporalem  vineam  defendebat,  te  vero  in 
perpetuum  multorum  nobis  martyrum  plantavit  interitus,  te  crux  apostolorum  aemula 
Dominicaj  passlonis  usque  in  orbis  totius  terminos  propagavit. 

t  We  have  a  remarkable  example  of  a  like  prophesying  to  men  their  wickedness, 
as  a  last  endeavour  to  turn  them  away  from  that  wickedness,  in  Elisha's  prophecy  to  Ha- 
zael,  2  Kin.  viii.  12-15. 


166  THE  WICKED  HUSBANDMEN. 

many  ways  in  which  God  encounters  our  selfish,  self-isolating  tenden- 
cies;  and  while  there  is  an  abundant  blessing  in  this  law  of  his  govern- 
ment, supplying  as  it  does  new  motives  and  incentives  to  good,  so  is 
there  no  hardship  or  injustice  in  it.  For  while  there  is  a  life  of  the 
whole,  there  is  also  a  life  of  each  part,  so  that  even  should  we  belong  to  a 
nation,  in  that  of  its  generations  which  is  chastised  for  all  its  own  and  its 
fathers'  iniquities, — a  generation  upon  which,  having  filled  up  the  last 
drop  of  the  measure,  the  accumulated  weight  of  chastisement  is  descend- 
ing,— yet  it  remains  always  possible  for  every  individual  even  of  that 
generation,  by  personal  faith  and  repentance,  to  withdraw  himself,  not 
indeed  always  from  sharing  in  the  outward  calamity,  though  often  there 
will  be  an  ark  when  a  world  perishes,  a  Pella  when  Jerusalem  is  de- 
stroyed, but  always  to  withdraw  himself  from  that  which  really  consti- 
tutes the  calamity, — the  wrath  of  God,  of  which  the  outward  visitation 
is  but  the  expression. 

The  necessity  of  preserving  the  due  probabilities  of  the  narrative 
renders  it,  of  course,  impossible  that  it  should  be  the  son,  through  whom 
the  final  vengeance  is  executed  on  these  thankless  and  wicked  husband- 
men ;  he  is  slain,  and  cannot,  like  him  whom  he  shadows  forth,  rise 
again  to  take  just  vengeance  on  his  murderers.  It  must  necessarily  be 
the  lord  of  the  vineyard, — that  is,  the  Father  :  neither  is  there  any  thing 
here  which  is  not  easily  reconcileable  to  the  general  doctrine  of  the 
Scripture,  for  it  is  the  Father  revealing  himself  in  the  Son,  who  both 
gave  the  law  at  Sinai,  and  will  also,  in  the  end  of  time,  return  to  take 
vengeance  on  all  that  obey  not  the  Gospel.  In  the  question  itself, 
"  When  the  lord  of  the  vineyard  cometh,  lohat  will  he  do  unto  those  husband- 
men ?"  Christ  makes  the  same  appeal  to  his  hearers,  compelling  them  to 
condemn  themselves  out  of  their  own  mouths,  which  Isaiah  (v.  3)  had 
done  before.*  It  may  be  that  the  Pharisees,  to  whom  he  addressed  him- 
self, had  as  yet  missed  the  scope  of  the  parable,  answering  as  they  did, 
"  He  will  miserably  destroy  those  wicked  men,'\  and  will  let  out  his  vine- 
yard unto  other  husbaridmen,"  and  so,  before  they  were  aware,  pro- 
nounced sentence  against  themselves  ;  or  Olshausen  may  be  more  cor- 
rect in  supposing  that  they  as  yet  pretended  not  to  perceive  its  drift,  and 
therefore  rendered  necessary  the  still  more  explicit  words,  (ver.  42-44,) 

*  Vitringa  there  observes :  Tam  enim  liquidum  est  Dei  jus,  ut  si  homo  exuto  af- 
fectu  in  tertio  simili  contempletur  quod  sui  ainore  excascatus  in  se  videre  non  vult,  per 
conscientiam  obligatur  ad  agnosceiulam  causae  divinae  justitiam.  Inio  neminem  Deus 
damnat,  nisi  quern  sua  condeninet  conscientia.  Ilabel  enim  Deus  in  omni  homine  su- 
um  tribunal,  sui  aedem  judicii,  et  per  honiineni  de  homine  judicat. 

t  Ka/fovj  KUKui,  a  proverbial  expression,  and  one  as  Grotius  observes,  petila  ex  pu- 
rissimo  sermone  Graeco  ;  he  does  not,  however,  give  any  examples.     This  remarkable 


THE  WICKED  HUSBANDMEN.  iQj 

which  it  was  impossible  any  longer  to  affect  to  misunderstand  :  "  There- 
fore I  say  unto  you,  The  kingdom  of  God  shall  be  taken  from  you,  and 
given  to  a  nation  bringing  forth  the  fruits  thereof."  Then  at  length 
Christ  and  his  adversaries  stood  face  to  face,  as  did  once  before  a  pro- 
phet and  a  wicked  king  of  Israel,  when  the  prophet,  having  obtained  in 
his  disguise  a  sentence  from  the  lips  of  the  king  against  himself,  remov- 
ed the  ashes  from  his  face,  and  the  king  "  discerned  him  that  he  was 
of  the  prophets,"  and  that  he  had  unconsciously  pronounced  his  own 
doom.  (1  Kin.  xx.  41.) — The  "  God  forbid,"  which,  according  to  St. 
Luke,  the  people  uttered  when  they  heard  the  terrible  doom  of  the  hus- 
bandmen, gives  evidence  that  the  scope  of  the  parable  had  not  escaped 
their  comprehension, — that  they  had  understood  it,  even  before  its  plain 
interpretation  at  the  last.*  The  Pharisees  had  too  much  wariness  and 
self-command  to  have  allowed  such  an  exclamation  to  have  escaped  from 
them.  The  exclamation  itself  was  either  an  expression  of  fear,  desiring 
that  such  evil  might  be  averted, — or  of  unbelief,  "  That  shall  never  be, 
it  is  impossible  that  our  privileges  can  ever  be  so  forfeited  :" — This  last 
is  more  probable  from  the  spirit  and  temper  of  those  who  give  it  utter- 
ance. 

Thereupon  the  Lord,  in  confirmation  of  this  truth  so  strange  to  his 
hearers,  quotes  a  prophecy  from  the  Old  Testament,  which  proved  that 
such  a  turn  of  things  had  been  contemplated  long  before  in  the  counsels 


one,  which  is  a  parallel  in  much  more  than  those  two  words,  may  suffice  in  place  of 
many  that  might  be  adduced. 

Toiyap  a(p'  'OXifinoti  Toiii'  o  irpeaPncov  Trarrip, 
M-vfifitov  t'  'Epivvvif  Kal  Tc\€cr(j>6pos  AUr) 
Kaxotij  KOKuis  (pdeipeiav,   Snyntp  iiOeXov 
Tdv  avSpa  \u0aii  UPaKeXv,  dyn^iu);. 

Sophocles.  Ajax,  1389. 

Our  version  has  not  attempted  to  preserve  the  paronomasia,  which  for  evident  rea- 
sons is  far  from  being  easy.  The  same  difficulty  attends  the  double  (pdcipcn',  (1  Cor. 
iii.  17,)  for  which  our  version  has  equally  failed  to  give  an  equivalent.  Compare 
Apuleius :  At  te  .  .  .  pessimum  pessime  perdant.  In  Plutarch's  Amator.  10,  we 
meet  Ka\dv  koXus. — How  remarkable  in  connexion  with  this  passage  are  those  words  of 
Josephus,  {Bell.  Jud.,  4,  5,  2,)  in  which  he  asserts  his  conviction  that  the  causes  of  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem  might  be  traced  up  to  the  murder  of  one  man,  Ananus  the 
high  priest  :  he  only  errs  in  the  person  whom  he  names. 

*  Augustine  (Z)e  Cons.  Evang.,  1.  2,  c.  70)  is  not  very  successful  in  his  scheme  for 
reconciling  any  slight  discrepancy  which  may  here  appear  between  the  narratives  of 
the  different  Evangelists  ,  but  the  apparent  discrepancy  is  in  itself  so  slight,  and  so 
easily  removable,  that  even  Strauss,  who  in  general  makes  the  weakest  and  thousand 
times  refuted  objections  do  service  anew,  has  not  thought  it  worth  while  to  bring  for- 
ward this. 


168  THE  WICKED  HUSBANDMEN. 

of  God — "  Did  ye  never  read  in  the  Scriptures,  The  stone  which  the 
builders  rejected,  the  same  is  become  the  head  of  the  corner  ?"  The 
quotation  is  from  Ps.  cxviii.  22,  23,  a  psalm  of  wliich,  as  already  has 
been  noted,  the  Jews  recognized  the  application  to  the  Messiah,  and  of 
which  there  is  the  same  application  at  Acts  iv.  11  ;  1  Pet.  ii.  7  ;  and  an 
allusion  somewhat  more  remote,  Ephes.  ii.  20.*  The  passage  quoted 
forms  an  exact  parallel  with  this  parable.  The  builders  answer  to  the 
husbandmen  : — they  were  appointed  of  God  to  carry  up  the  spiritual 
building,  as  these  to  cultivate  the  spiritual  vineyard.  The  rejection  of 
the  chief  corner  stone  answers  exactly  to  the  denying  and  murdering 
the  heir.  The  reason  why  he  leaves  for  a  moment  the  image  of  the' 
vineyard,  is  because  of  its  inadequacy  to  set  forth  one  important  part  of 
the  truth,  which  yet  was  needful  to  make  the  moral  complete,  namely 
this,  that  the  malice  of  the  Pharisees  should  not  defeat  the  purpose  of 
God, — that  the  son  should  yet  be  the  heir, — that  not  merely  vengeance 
should  be  taken,  but  that  he  should  take  it.  Now  this  is  distinctly  set 
forth  by  the  rejected  stone  becoming  the  head  of  the  corner,  on  which 
the  builders  stumbled  and  fell,  and  were  broken,  f — on  which  they  were 
now  already  thus  stumbling  and  falling,  and  which,  if  they  set  them- 
selves against  it  to  the  end,  would  fall  upon  them  and  crush  and  destroy 
them  utterly.:}:  They  fall  on  the  stone,  who  are  offended  at  Christ  in 
his  low  estate  ;  (Isai.  viii.  14  ;  Luke  ii.  34 ;)  of  this  sin  his  hearers 
were  already  guilty.  There  was  yet  a  worse  sin  which  they  were  on 
the  point  of  committing,  which  he  warns  them  would  be  followed  with  a 
more  tremendous  punishment :  they  on  whom  the  stone  falls  are  they 
who  set  themselves  in  distinct  and  self-conscious  opposition  against  the 
Lord, — who,  knowing  who  he  is,  do  yet  to  the  end  oppose  themselves  to 
him  and  to  his  kingdom  j§  and  they  shall  not  merely  fall  and  be  broken, 

*  The  dKpoywviaioi  there  =  \iOoi  th  Ke(j>a\tjv  yMi/iai  here  ;  the  headstone  of  Zech.  iv. 
7.  Aquila :  o  AiOuj  h  -KpoiTiiwi'.  (See  1  Kin.  v.  17.)  It  was  a  favourite  view  of  the 
early  Fathers  that  Christ  was  called  the  corner  stone,  because  he  united  the  Jew  and 
the  Gentile,  making  both  one  :  thus  Augustine,  in  almost  numberless  places, — for 
instance  (Serin.  88,  c.  11) :  Angulus  duos  parietes  copulat  de  diverse  venientes.  Quid 
tam  diversum,  quarn  circumcisio  et  prtEputium,  habens  unum  parietem  de  JudaeA,  alte- 
rum  parietem  de  gentibus  ?  sed  angular)  lapide  copulantur. 

t  Cajetan  :  Plus  subjungit  quam  parabola  pateretur  :  Parabola  enim  usque  ad  vin- 
dictam  duxit ;  sed  hac  additione  suppletur,  quod  occisio  filii  non  privavit  filium  haered- 
itate :  hoc  enim  significat  adjuncta  prophetia  de  Messia  sub  nietamorphosa  lapidis. 

X  Lachmann  marks  ver.  44  in  Matthew,  as  an  interpolation,  brought  in  from  St. 
Luke  ;  and  it  certainly  seems  out  of  its  place,  as  one  would  have  naturally  looked  for 
it  after  ver.  42. 

§  So  Tertullian,  (Adv.  Marc,  1.  3,  c.  7)  and  Augustine  :  Christus  varus  lapis  in 
hoc  seculo  quasi  terra;  infixus  jacet,  in  judicio  vero  futuro  quasi  ex  summo  veniet,  im- 


THE  WICKED  HUSBANDMEN.  169 

for  one  might  recover  himself,  though  with  some  present  harm,  from  such 
a  fall  as  this  ;  but  on  them  the  stone  shall  fall  and  shall  grind  *  them  to 
powder, — in  the  words  of  Daniel,  "  like  the  chaff  of  the  summer  thresh- 
ing-floors," destroying  them  with  a  doom  irreversible,  and  from  which 
there  should  be  no  recovery. f 

All  three  Evangelists  notice  the  exasperation  of  the  chief  priests  and 
scribes,  when  they  perceived,  as  they  all  did  at  last,  though  it  would 
seem  some  sooner  than  others,  that  the  parable  was  spoken  against  them  : 
they  no  longer  kept  any  terms  with  the  Lord,  and,  had  they  not  feared 
the  people,  would  have  laid  violent  hands  on  him  at  once.  Yet  not  even 
so  did  he  give  them  up  ;  but  as  he  had,  in  this  parable,  set  forth  their 
relation  to  God  as  a  relation  of  duty,  as  he  had  shown  them  how  a  charge 
was  laid  upon  them,  which  they  incurred  the  greatest  guilt  and  the  most 
fearful  danger  in  neglecting  to  fulfil,  so  in  the  ensuing  parable, — of  the 
Marriage  of  the  King's  Son,  he  sets  it  forth  in  a  yet  more  inviting  light 
as  a  relation  of  privilege, — not  any  more  as  a  duty  and  charge,  but  as 
a  grace  and  boon  freely  imparted  to  them  ;  which  yet  they  incurred  an 
equal  danger  and  guilt  in  counting  light  of  or  despising. 

pios  conteret :  hoc  dictum  est  de  lapide  illo,  Qui  offenderit  in  lapidem  ilium,  conquas- 
sabit  eum,  super  quern  venerit,  conteret  eum:  aliud  est  conquassari,  aliud  conteri : 
conquassari  minus  est  quam  conteri. 

*  AiKfifjaei,  from  Xi*f/iof  =  tttvov,  Matt.  ill.  12,  the  fan  with  which  the  chaff,  which  in 
the  act  of  threshing  had  been  crushed  and  broken  into  minute  fragments,  is  scattered 
and  driven  away  upon  the  wind.  (Isai.  xli.  2,  15,  16.)  In  the  N.  T.  it  occurs  only 
here  ;  in  the  parallel  passage,  Dan.  ii.  44,  \iKiJifiaci  -rraa-a;  ra;  Bnai'Xcias. 

t  H.  De  Sto  Victore  makes  the  following  application  of  the  parable  to  every  man 
(Annott.  in  Luc.) :  Secundum  moralem  sensum  vinea  locatur,  ciim  mysterium  baptismi 
fidelibus  ad  exercendum  opere  committitur.  Mittuntur  tres  servi  ut  de  fructu  accipiant, 
cum  Lex,  Psalmodia,  Prophetia,  ad  bene  agendum  hortatur :  sed  contumeliis  affecti, 
vel  caesi  ejiciuntur,  cum  sermo  auditus  vel  contemnitur,  vel  blaspheraatur.  Missum  in- 
super  haeredem  occidit,  qui  filium  Dei  contemnit,  et  spiritui  quo  sanctificatus  est,  con- 
tumeliam  facit.     Vinea  alteri  datur,  cum  gratis,  quam  superbus  abjicit,  humilis  ditatur. 


12 


IJQ  THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  KING'S  SON. 


PARABLE  XII. 


THE    MARRIAGE    OF    THE  KING'S    SON.* 

Matthew  xxii.  1-14. 

This  parable,  and  that  which  is  found  at  Luke  xiv.  16,  are  not  to  be 
confounded  with  one  another,!  as  if  they  were  only  two  different  ver- 
sions of  the  same  discourse,  though  Calvin,  indeed,  and  others  have  so 
confounded  them.  It  is  true  that  the  same  image  lies  at  the  root  of  both, 
that,  namely,  of  an  invitation  to  a  festival ;  yet  it  is  plain  that  they  were 
spoken  on  very  different  occasions, — that  at  a  meal,  this  in  the  temple, — 
and  that,  too,  at  a  much  earlier  period  of  our  Lord's  ministry  than  this. 
For  then  the  hostility  of  the  Pharisaic  party  had  not  yet  openly  declared 
itself,  nor  indeed  reached  that  pitch  to  which  it  afterwards  arrived ;  on 
the  contrary,  we  find  one  of  the  chief  Pharisees,  on  the  very  occasion 
when  the  other  parable  was  spoken,  had  invited  the  Saviour  to  eat  bread 
with  him.  (Luke  xiv.  1.)  But  when  this  parable  was  spoken,  their  hos- 
tility had  already  attained  to  the  highest  point,  even  to  the  formal  deter, 
mination  of  making  away  with  Christ  by  violent  means.  (John  xi.  47- 
53.)  Then  there  was  yet  hope  that  they  might,  perhaps,  be  won  over 
to  obedience  to  the  truth  :  now  they  were  fixed  in  their  rejection  of  the 
counsel  of  God,  and  in  their  hatred  of  his  Christ.  And  consistently  with 
the  different  times,  and  the  different  tempers  of  the  hearers,  the  parable 
in  St.  Luke  wears  a  milder,  in  St.  Matthew  a  severer,  aspect : — in  the 
latter  the  guilt  is  greater,  the  retribution  more  terrible.  In  that  other, 
the  guests  decline  indeed  the  invitation,  but  civilly  excuse  themselves  ; — 
in  this,  they  mark  their  contempt  for  the  invitation  as  strongly  as  they 
can,  not  thinking  it  worth  their  while  to  make  any  excuse,  and  some  of 
them  maltreating  and  killing  the  servants,  the  bearers  of  the  message. 
Doubtless  too,  had  it  consisted  with  the  decorum  of  the  other  parts  of  the 
narration,  the  king's  son  himself  would  have  been  the  bearer  of  the  invi- 

*  This  title,  which  is  the  one  given  to  the  parable  in  the  heading  of  the  chapter  in 
our  version,  seems  preferable  to  that  by  which  it  is  sometimes  called,  namely,  the 
Wedding  Garment ;  for  then  the  name  is  given,  not  from  the  main  circumstance  of 
the  narrative,  but  from  that  which  is  but  an  episode  in  it :  and  the  other  title.  The 
Marriage  of  the  King's  Son,  quite  as  effectually  distinguishes  the  present  parable  from 
that  of  the  Great  Supper  in  St.  Luke. 

t  See  Augustine,  De  Cons.  Evang.,  1.  2,  c.  71. 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  KING'S  SON.  jy-j 

tation  and  the  victim  of  their  outrage,  as  was  the  householder's  son  in 
the  last  parable.  In  that,  the  contemptuous  guests  are  merely  excluded 
from  the  festival,— in  this,  their  city  is  burned  up  and  themselves  de- 
stroyed.  And  as  the  contempt  would  be  aggravated  in  proportion  to  the 
dignity  and  honour  of  the  person  inviting  and  the  solemnity  of  the  occa- 
sion, this  increased  guilt  is  set  forth  by  the  fact  of  it  being  a  king,— and 
no  common  man,  as  in  that  other,— who  makes  the  festival,— so  that  re- 
bellion  is  mingled  with  their  contempt,— and  the  festival  itself  no  ordi- 
nary  one,  but  one  in  honour  of  his  son's  marriage  ; — by  which  latter  cir- 
cumstance is  brought  out  the  relation  of  the  Jews,  not  merely  to  the 
kingdom  of  God  in  general,  but  their  relation  to  Jesus,  the  personal  theo- 
cratic King ;  and  in  every  way  the  guilt  involved  in  their  rejection  of 
him  is  heightened.  And  again,  while  in  the  parable  recorded  by  St. 
Luke,  nothing  more  is  threatened  than  that  God  would  turn  from  one 
portion  of  the  Jewish  people,— from  the  priests  and  the  Pharisees,— and 
offer  the  benefits  which  they  counted  light  of,  to  another  part  of  the  same 

nation, — the  people  that  knew  not  the  law,  the  publicans  and  harlots, 

with  only  a  slight  intimation  (ver.  23)  of  the  call  of  the  Gentiles;  in  St. 
Matthew  it  is  threatened  that  the  kingdom  of  God  shall  be  taken  wholly 
away  from  the  Jewish  people,  who  had  now  proved  themselves  in  the 
mass,  and  with  very  few  exceptions,  despisers  of  its  privileges,  and  should 
be  given  to  the  Gentiles.* 

But  one  of  the  latest  cavillers,f  not  attending  to  these  circumstances 
which  justify  and  perfectly  explain  the  appearance  of  the  parable  in 
forms  so  different,  asserts  that  here  St.  Luke  is  the  only  accurate  nar- 
rator of  Christ's  words,  and  that  St.  Matthew  has  mixed  up  with  them 
some  heterogeneous  elements, — for  instance,  some  particulars,  as  of  the 
maltreatment  and  murder  of  the  servants,  drawn  from  the  parable  pre- 
ceding;  and  has  also  blended  into  the  same  whole,  the  fragment  of 
another,  namely,  the  Wedding  Garment,  which  when  uttered,  was  to- 
tally distinct.  For  the  first  assertion  his  only  argument  wearino-  the 
slightest  appearance  of  probability,  is,  that  while  it  is  quite  intelligible 
how  the  husbandmen  should   abuse  and  maltreat  servants  of  their  lord, 

*  Fleck  {De  Reg.  Dix>.,  p.  241)  with  truth  observes:  Parabolarum  in  posterioribus 
Matthaeiani  iibri  partibus  propositarum  talis  est  indoles,  ut  sacrum  divini  animi  mcero- 
rem  spirent,  et  severum  prodant  habitum.  Incidunt  in  ea  tempora  quibus  Pharisseo- 
rum,  sacerdotum,  seniorumque  plebis  machinationem,  maligna  consilia,  et  ccecitatem 
abunde  expertus  Servator,  divina;  caussB  quotidie  infestiores  prsvidit  futuros.  And 
Unger  [De  Parah.  Jes.  Nat.,  p.  122)  :  Videtur  itaque  Matthaeus  parabolam  tradidisse, 
qualem  Jesus  posteriore  eaque  austeriore  occasione  ipse  repetierit,  variatam,  auctiorem, 
severiorem,  jam  toto  de  populo  judaico  mceste  vaticinantera. 

t  Strauss  :  Leben  Jesu.,  v.  1,  p.  677,  seq. 


172  THE  MARRIAGE  OP  THE  KING'S  SON. 

who  came  demanding  rent  from  them ;  it  is  inconceivable,  and  there- 
fore could  not  find  place  in  a  parable,  of  which  the  very  condition  is, 
that  it  should  have  perfect  verisimilitude, — that  invited  guests,  however 
unwilling  to  keep  their  engagement,  should  actually  maltreat  and  kill 
the  servants  sent  to  remind  them  that  the  festival,  to  which  they  were 
engaged,  was  now  ready.  It  is  of  course  true  that  this  can  with  diffi- 
culty be  conceived,  when  we  suppose  no  other  motive  but  unwilling- 
ness to  keep  the  engagement  at  work  in  them.  But  may  we  not  rather 
presume  that  a  deep  alienation  from  their  lord,  with  a  readiness  to  re- 
sist and  rebel  against  him,  existing  long  before,  found  its  utterance  here  ? 
In  the  presence  of  these  his  ambassadors,  an  outrage  against  whom  would 
express  as  much  as  an  outrage  against  himself,  the  desired  occasion 
may  have  offered  itself  for  showing  an  hostility,  which  had  long  been 
entertained.*  The  little  apparent  motive  makes  their  conduct  almost 
monstrous,  yet  thus  fitter  to  declare  the  monstrous  fact,  that  men  should 
maltreat  and  slay  the  messengers  of  God's  grace,  the  ambassadors  of 
Christ,  who  came  to  them  with  glad  tidings  of  good  things, — should  be 
ready  to  rend  them,  as  well  as  to  tread  their  pearls  under  foot. 

His  other  objection,  that  the  latter  part  of  the  parable  which  relates  to 
the  weddincp  garment  cannot  have  originally  belonged  to  it,  is  partly  the 
old  one,  that  the  guest  could  not  in  justice  be  punished  for  not  having 
that,  which,  as  the  course  of  the  story  goes,  he  had  no  opportunity  of 
obtaining — on  which  objection  there  will  be  occasion  presently  to  re- 
rnark — and  partly,  that  this  is  an  entirely  new  and  alien  element  intro- 
duced into,  and  marring  the  unity  of,  the  parable  ;  something  appended 
to,  not  intimately  cohering  with  it.  But  so  far  from  this  being  the  case, 
we  have  here  a  wonderful  example  of  the  love  and  wisdom  which  mark- 
ed the  teaching  of  our  Lord.  For  how  fitting  was  it  in  a  discourse 
which  set  forth  how  sinners  of  every  degree  were  invited  to  a  fellowship 
in  the  blessings  of  the  Gospel,  that  they  should  be  reminded  likewise, 
that  for  the  lasting  enjoyment  of  these,  they  must  put  off  their  former 
conversation, — in  Theophylact's  words,  "  that  the  entrance,  indeed,  to  the 
marriage-feast  is  without  scrutiny,  for  by  grace  alone  we  are  all  called, 
as  well  bad  as  good  ;  but  the  life  of  those  that  have  entered,  hereafter 
shall  not  be  without  scrutiny : — the  King  will  make  a  very  strict  exam- 

*  Oftentimes  in  the  East,  a  feast  would  have  a  great  political  significance,  would  in 
fact  be  a  great  gathering  of  the  vassals  of  the  king  ;  contemplated  on  this  side,  their  re- 
fusal to  come  at  once  assumes  the  aspect  of  rebellion.  Thus  there  are  many  reasons 
to  suppose  that  the  feast  recorded  in  Esth.  i.  is  the  same  as  the  great  gathering  which 
Xerxes  (Ahasuerus)  made  when  he  was  planning  his  Greek  expedition,  (aiWoyov  ini- 
K'KrfTDv  Ticpaiwv  tmv  apiarwi',  Herod.  1.  7,  c.  8,)  though  Herodotus  brings  out  more  its 
political,  the  sacred  historian  its  festal,  side. 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  KING'S  SON.  I73 

ination  of  those  who,  having  entered  into  the  faith,  shall  be  found  in  filthy 
garments" — a  most  needful  caution,  lest  any  should  abuse  the  grace  of 
God,  and  forget  that  while  as  regarded  the  past  they  were  freely  called, 
they  were  yet  now  called  unto  holiness. 

Thus  much  on  the  relation  in  which  this  parable  stands  to  that  re- 
corded  by  St.  Luke.  In  the  present,  as  compared  with  the  last,  we  see 
how  the  Lord  is  revealing  himself  in  ever  clearer  light  as  the  central 
person  of  the  kingdom,  giving  here  a  far  plainer  hint  than  there  of  the 
nobility  of  his  descent.  There  he  was  indeed  the  son,  the  only  and  be- 
loved one,  of  the  householder ;  but  here  his  race  is  royal,  and  he  ap- 
pears as  himself  at  once  the  king,  and  the  king's  son.  (Ps.  Ixxii.  1.) 
This  appearance  of  the  householder,  as  the  king,  announces  that  the 
sphere  in  which  this  parable  moves  is  the  New  Testament  dispensation — 
is  the  kingdom,  which  was  announced  before,  but  was  only  actually  pre- 
sent with  the  coming  of  the  king.  That  last  was  a  parable  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment history  ;  even  Christ  himself  appears  there  rather  as  the  last  and 
greatest  of  the  line  of  its  prophets  and  teachers,  than  as  the  founder  of  a 
new  kingdom.  In  that,  a  parable  of  the  law,  God  appears  demanding 
something  from  men  ;  in  this,  a  parable  of  grace,  God  appears  more  as 
giving  something  to  them.  There,  he  is  displeased  that  his  demands  are 
not  complied  with — here,  that  his  goodness  is  not  accepted ;  there  he 
requires,  here  he  imparts.  And  thus,  as  we  so  often  find,  the  two  mutu- 
ally complete  one  another ;  this  taking  up  the  matter,  where  the  other 

left  it. 

The  two  favourite  images  under  which  the  prophets  set  forth  the 
blessino-s  of  the  new  covenant,  and  of  all  near  communion  with  God, 
that  of  a  festival  (Isai.  xxv.  6,  Ixv.  13  ;  Cant.  v.  1)— and  that  of  a  mar- 
riage,* (Isai.  Ixi.  10,  Ixii.  5  ;  Hos.  ii.  19;  Matt.  ix.  15  ;  John  iii.  29; 
Ephes.  V.  32  ;  2  Cor.  xi.  2,)  are  united  and  interpenetrate  one  another 
in   the    marriage  festival  f   here.     There  appears  indeed   this  inconve- 

*  The  phrase  noidv  y«//oi/,  occurring  Gen.  xxix.  22  ;  Tob.  viii.  19 ;  1  Mace.  ix. 
37,  X.  58,  (LXX.,)  is  rather,  as  also  often  in  classical  Greek,  to  celebrate  the  marriage 
feast  than  the  marriage,  (see  Matt.  xxv.  10  ;  Esth.  ii.  18,)  and  sometimes  the  notion  of 
the  marriage  is  altogether  lost,  and  that  of  the  festival  alone  remains  :  so  for  instance, 
Esth.  ix.  22,  where  the  ya^oi  are  merely  feastings  ;  not  otherwise,  I  think,  should  the 
word  be  understood  at  Luke  xiv.  8,  and  at  ver.  4  of  the  present  parable.  Singularly 
enough,  exactly  the  reverse  has  happened  with  the  German  Hochzeit,  which  signifying 
at  first  any  high  festival,  is  now  only  the  festival  of  a  marriage.  These  marriage  fes- 
tivities lasted  commonly  seven  or  fourteen  days.  (Gen.  xxix.  27 ;  Judg.  xiv.  12; 
Tob.  viii.  19.) 

+  Vitringa  {In  Apocal.,  xix.  7)  :  Nuptioe  ipsas  figurant  arctissimam  Christi  cum 
Ecclesid  unionem,  fide  utrinque  data,  et  fcederali  contractu  obsignatam,  ad  faciendam 
spiritualem  sobolem,  quse  orbem  repleat.     Epulum  nuptiale  adumbrat  tum  beneficia 


174  THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  KING'S  SON. 

nience,  resulting  from  the  inadequacy  of  things  human  to  set  forth 
things  divine,  that  the  members  of  the  Church  are  at  once  the  guests  in- 
vited to  the  feast,  and,  in  their  collective  capacity,  constitute  the  bride 
at  whose  espousals  the  feast  is  given.*  But  in  the  progress  of  the  nar- 
rative the  circumstances  of  the  marriage  altogether  fall  into  the  back 
ground  ;f  the  different  conduct  of  the  guests  invited  to  the  feast  becomes 
the  prominent  feature  of  the  narration.  This  parable,  like  the  last,  has 
its  groundwork  and  its  rudiments  in  the  Old  Testament,  (Exod.  xxiv. 
11  ;  Zeph.  i.  7,  8 ;  Prov.  ix.  1,)  and  it  entered  quite  into  the  circle  of 
Jewish  expectations,  that  the  setting  up  of  the  kingdom  of  the  Messiah 
should  be  accompanied  with,  and  ushered  in  by,  a  glorious  festival : 
and  elsewhere  our  Lord  himself  does  not  refuse  to  make  use  of  the  same 
image  for  the  setting  forth  the  same  truths.  (Luke  xxii.  18,  30.)  It  is 
true  indeed  that  the  marriage  is  spoken  of  there,  and  at  Rev.  xix.  7,  as 
one  that  shall  not  take  place  till  the  end  of  the  present  age,  while  here 
the  Lord  speaks  of  it  as  already  present;  but  the  two  statements  are 
easily  reconcilable,  when  we  keep  in  mind  how  distinct  the  espousals 
and  the  actual  marriage  were  held  in  the  East,  and  contemplate  his  first 
coming  as  the  time  of  his  espousals,  while  not  till  his  second  coming 
will  he  lead  home  his  bride. 

At  a  fitting  time  the  king  "  sent  forth  his  servants  \  to  call  them  that 
were  hidden  to  the  wedding''^ — we  must  presume,  a  numerous  company, 
for  in  the  corresponding  parable  in  St.  Luke,  the  giver  of  the  feast,  a 
private  man  as  it  would  seem,  "  bade  many."  Here  then  we  may  sup- 
pose  still  larger  numbers  to  have  been  bidden,  even  as  the  maker  of  the 
feast  was  a  greater  person,  and  the  occasion  a  more  solemn  one.  (Com- 
pare Esth.  i.  3-9.)     This  second  invitation,   or  admonishment  rather, 


gratioe,  quae  vi  justitiae  Christi  Ecclesise  ad  satietatem  et  hilaritatem  exhibenlur,  turn 
illorum  beneficiorum  communionem,  turn  denique  leetitiam  et  festivitatem,  quaB  cum 
fruitione  bonorum  gratiae  conjungitur,  et  ex  ea  ad  convivas  hujus  epuli  redundat. 

*  Augustine  {In  Ep.  1  Joh.  Tract.  2)  :  Non  quomodo  in  nuptiis  carnalibus  alii 
frequentant  nuptias  et  alia  nubit :  in  Ecclesia  qui  frequentant,  si  bene  frequentant, 
sponsa  fiunt. 

t  This  difficulty  would  be  altogether  escaped,  if  we  understood  this  marriage  as  one 
between  the  Divine  Word  and  the  human  Nature, — God  and  man  united  and  making 
one  Christ ;  so  Augustine  and  Gregory  the  Great  (Horn.  38  in  Evang.,)  have  under- 
stood it,  though  certainly  neither  to  the  exclusion  of  the  more  obvious  meaning  suggest- 
ed by  such  passages  as  Ephes.  v.  24—32,  according  to  which  the  marriage  would  be  one 
between  Christ  and  his  Church.  Gregory  shows  how  well  the  two  interpretations  can 
be  reconciled,  saying,  In  hoc  Pater  regi  filio  nuptias  fecit,  quo  ei  per  incarnationis  mys- 
terium  sanctam  Ecclesiam  sociavit. 

\  Technically  vocatores,  invitatores,  kX^toae;,  ^cin-i-o/i-X/jropff,  iXcarpoi.  See  Prov.  ix. 
3-5. 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  KING'S  SON.  175 

is  quite  according  to  Eastern  manners.  Thus  Esther  invites  Haman 
to  a  banquet  on  the  morrow,  (Esth.  v.  8,)  and  when  the  time  is  actually- 
arrived,  the  chamberlain  comes  to  bring  him  to  the  banquet,  (vi.  14.) 
Modern  travellers  testify  to  the  same  custom  now  of  repeating  the  invi- 
tation  to  a  great  entertainment,  at  the  moment  when  all  things  are  in 
actual  readiness ;  so  that  there  is  no  reason  at  all  why  with  some  we 
should  make  "  them  that  loere  bidden'^  to  mean  them  that  were  now  to 
be  bidden.* 

Indeed,  deeper  reasons  than  those  that  lie  on  the  surface  of  the  para- 
ble  are  against  this  ;  for  our  Lord  in  assuming  the  guests  to  have  been 
invited  long  before,  would  bring  out  that  the  new  was  not  indeed  new, 
but  rather  a  fulfilment  of  the  old,  that  he  claimed  to  be  heard,  not  as 
one  suddenly  starting  up,  and  unconnected  with  all  which  had  gone  be- 
fore him,  but  as  himself  the  end  of  the  law,  that  to  which  it  all  had  been 
tending,  the  birth  with  which  the  whole  Jewish  dispensation  had  been 
pregnant,  and  which  at  length  gave  its  meaning  to  all.  When  he 
says,  "  to  call  them  that  were  bidden,"  he  teaches  us,  as  he  would  fain 
have  taught  those  who  then  heard  him,  that  there  was  nothing  sudden  in 
the  coming  in  of  his  kingdom,  that  its  rudiments  had  a  long  while  be- 
fore been  laid,  that  all  which  they  clung  to  as  precious  in  their  past  his- 
tory was  prophetic  of  blessings  now  actually  present  to  themselves. f  The 
invitation  first  went  forth  at  the  constitution  of  the  Jewish  nation  as  God's 
elect  people,  and  ran  through  all  their  history.  It  was  taken  up  and 
repeated  by  each  succeeding  prophet,  as  he  prophesied  of  the  crowning 
grace  that  should  one  day  be  brought  to  Israel  in  the  actual  presence  in 
the  midst  of  it  of  its  Lord  and  King,  and  summoned  the  people  to  hold 
themselves  in  a  spiritual  readiness  against  that  day. 

Yet  they  never  did  more  than  thus  bid  the  guests,  for  they  onlv 
spoke  of  good  things  to  come.  The  actual  calling  of  "  them  that  loere 
bidden'^  pertained  not  to  them.  John  the  Baptist  was  the  first  in  whose 
time  the  kingdom  was  actually  present,  the  wedding  feast  prepared,  the 
king  and  the  king's  son  manifested,  and  the  long-invited  guests  sum- 
moned. By  the  first  band  of  servants  I  should  certainly  now  under- 
stand John  and  the  apostles  in  their  first  mission — that  which  they  ac- 
complished  during  the  lifetime  of  the  Lord,  his  Incarnation  being  the 

*  Thus  Storr  (Opusc.  Acad.,  v.  1,  p.  120)  affirms  rov;  KCK^rifiivov;  may  as  well  sig- 
nify vocandos  as  vocatos!  Did  not  this  refute  itself,  Luke  xiv.  16,  17,  would  be  de- 
cisive in  the  matter. 

t  See  in  this  view  the  admirable  use  which  Tertullian  makes  of  this  parable,  or 
rather  of  its  parallel;  (Luke  xiv.  IG,)  arguing  against  Marcion,  (1.  4,  c.  31.)  whose 
great  aim  was  to  cut  loose  the  New  Testament  from  the  Old.  So  too  Irenaeus,  Con. 
H<Er.,  1.  4,  c.  36. 


176  THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  KING'S  SON. 

true  bridal  of  the  earth  and  heaven.*  His  own  share  in  summoning  the 
guests,  summoning  them,  that  is,  unto  himself,  "  Come  unto  me,"  is  na- 
turally in  the  parable  kept  out  of  sight.  It  would  have  disturbed  those 
proprieties  which  it  was  needful  to  observe,  to  have  made  the  king's  son 
himself  a  bearer  of  the  invitation;  but  yet  did  he  in  the  reality  of  his 
infinite  condescension  sustain  the  double  character,  and  he  for  whom  the 
marriage  was  made,  was  content  himself  to  be  sent  forth  to  call  the 
guests  thereunto.  We  observe  upon  this  first  occasion,  there  was  no 
actual  maltreatment  of  the  servants  sent  out ;  a  general  averseness  from 
the  message,  and  alienation  from  the  messengers, — but  as  yet  no  posi- 
tive  outrage — nor  was  thei-e  such  against  the  apostles  during  the  life- 
time  of  the  Lord,f  nor  at  the  first  against  the  Lord  himself.  It  was 
simply  "  they  would  not  come.'"  "  Ye  toill  not  come  to  me,  that  ye  may 
have  life." 

''Again  he  sent  forth  other  servants."  The  second  sending  forth  of 
the  servants  describes  that  renewed  invitation  to  the  Jews  which  was 
made  subsequent  to  the  Crucifixion  :  of  this,  as  was  needful,  nothing 
was  said,  for  the  parable  would  not  bear  it.  It  need  not  perplex  us  to 
find  these  spoken  of  as  "  other"  servants,  while,  in  fact,  many  of  them 
were  the  same.  In  the  first  place,  there  were  many  other  now  associ- 
ated with  them,  Stephen  and  Barnabas  and  Paul  and  a  great  company 
of  preachers.  Those,  too,  who  were  the  same  yet  went  forth  as  new 
men,  full  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  with  a  somewhat  altered  message,  not 
preaching  generally  a  kingdom  of  God,  but  preaching  now  "  Jesus  and 
the  resurrection;"  declaring,  which  it  may  be  observed  they  had  not 
done  before,  that  all  things  were  ready — that  all  the  obstacles  which 
man's  sin  had  reared  up,  God's  grace  had  removed  ;  (Acts  ii.  38,  39; 
iii.  19-26  ;  iv.  12  ;)  that  in  that  very  blood  which  they  had  impiously 
shed,  there  was  forgiveness  of  all  sins,   and  freedom  of  access  to  God. 

*  These  missions  by  the  king  of  his  servants  to  summon  the  guests  (ver.  3,  4)  have 
been  sometimes  differently  understood.  Thus  Origen  applies  them  both  to  the  sending 
of  the  prophets  under  the  law;  Jerome  makes  no  doubt  that  the  first  mission  (ver.  3) 
is  to  be  so  understood,  though  he  is  more  doubtful  about  the  second.  So  too  Grego- 
ry the  Great  (Horn.  38  in  Evarig.)  understands  it :  Bis  itaque  servos  ad  invitandum 
misit,  quia  Incarnationem  Unigcniti  et  per  prophetas  dixit  futuram,  et  per  Apostoios 
nunciavit  factam.  I  am  now  persuaded  however  that  Hilary's  is  in  the  main  the  true 
explanation  ;  who  {Com.  in  Matth.,  in  loc.)  thus  expresses  himself:  Servi  missi,  qui 
invitatos  vocarent,  Apostoli  sunt :  eorum  enim  erat  proprium,  commonefacere  eos, 
quos  invilaverant  prophetae.  Qui  vero  iterum  cum  prseceptorum  conditione  mittuntur, 
Apostolici  sunt  viri  et  successores  Apostolorum. 

t  The  death  of  John  cannot  be  here  adduced  ;  for  he  by  whose  command  he  was 
murdered  was  an  Edomite,  not  therefore  one  of  the  invited  guests  at  all — and  more- 
over, it  was  for  preaching  the  law,  not  the  Gospel,  that  he  died. 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  KING'S  SON.  I77 

And  let  us  not  miss  in  the  parable  or  in  its  application  the  infinite  grace 
which  gives  to  the  guests  the  opportunity  of  coming  to  a  better  mind, 
and  making  good  their  first  contempt.  The  king,  as  though  he  thought 
it  possible  that  they  deferred  coming,  as  not  being  aware  that  the  prepa- 
rations were  yet  completed,  or  that  some  other  misunderstanding  had 
found  place,  instead  of  threatening  or  rebuking,  told  his  servants  only  to 
press  the  message  with  greater  distinctness  and  instancy :  "  Tell  them 
which  are  hidden,"  so  tell  them  that  they  cannot  mistake,  that  every  an- 
terior preparation  is  made,*  and  that  now  "  all  things  are  ready."  And 
exactly  thus  was  it  with  the  apostles  after  the  crucifixion ;  how  willing 
were  they  to  look  upon  all  that  was  past  in  the  mildest  possible  light ; 
thus  Peter,  (Acts  iii.  17,)  "  And  now,  brethren,  1  wot  that  through  ig- 
norance ye  did  it;" — how  did  they  refuse  to  dwell  upon  the  past  sin, 
urging  rather  the  present  grace  ! 

But  the  servants  upon  this  second  mission  fare  worse  than  upon  the 
first.  The  guests,  when  they  heard  the  reiterated  invitation,  "made 
light  of  it,  and  luent  their  ways,  one  to  his  farm,  another  to  his  merchan- 
dise." Nor  is  this  the  worst.  The  careless  disregard  of  the  honour 
vouchsafed,  which  appeared  from  the  beginning,  and  has  grown  in  some 
to  this  contemptuous  rejection  of  it,  has  ripened  in  others  to  an  absolute 
hostility  against  the  bringers  of  the  message :  "  The  remnant  took  his 
.servants,  and  entreated  them  spitefully,  and  slew  them."  So  there  are 
ever  in  the  world  two  kinds  of  despisers  of  the  Gospel  of  God  :  some  whc^ 
take  the  trouble  perhaps  of  saying,  "  I  pray  thee  have  me  excused  " — 
others  in  whom  it  excites  feelings  of  a  positive  enmity.  Those  in  the 
first  class  are  again  subdivided  ;  for  it  is  said  that  they  "  went  their 
ways,  one  to  his  farm,  another  to  his  merchandise."  The  question  natu- 
rally ai'ises.  Can  we  make  a  distinction  here?  did  the  Lord  intend  a 
distinction  ?  Perhaps  if  we  understand  of  the  first  as  one  who  went  to  his 
estate,  which  the  word  will  perfectly  justify,  the  distinction  will  come 
more  clearly  out.  The  first  is  the  landed  proprietor,  the  second  the 
merchant ;  the  first  would  enjoy  what  he  already  possesses,  the  second 
would  acquire  what  as  yet  is  his  only  in  anticipation.  Exactly  so, 
Luke  xiv.  18,  19,  the  guest  who  has  bought  a  property  and  must  needs 
go  and  see  it,  is  one  who  has  entered  into  the  first  condition  ;  the  guest 
who  would  fain  try  his  five  yoke  of  oxen,  belongs  to  the  second.  The 
dangers  of  having  and  of  getting,  though  cognate,  are  yet  not  at  all  the 


*  "  My  oxen  and  my  failings  are  killed."     This  would  be  a  sign  of  the  immediate 
nearness  of  the  feast.     Cbardin  {Voy.  en  Perse, w.  4,  p.  48)  :  On  tue  le  matin  le  mou- 

ton  et  I'agneau  qu'on  mangera  le  soir Les  Persans  croient  que  la  meilleure 

chair  est  la  plus  fralche  tuee.     (See  Gen.  xviii.  7,  8  ;  xliii.  16  ;  Prov.  ix.  1-5.) 


378  THE  MARRIAGE  OP  THE  KING'S  SON. 

same.  There  is  quite  difference  enough  between  them  to  account  for 
the  distinction.  One  of  the  guests  when  urged  to  come,  turned  to  that 
which  by  his  own  or  others'  labour  he  had  got — another  to  what  he  was 
hoping  to  get.*  They  are  either  those  who  are  full,  or  are  hoping  to  be 
full  of  this  world;  and  the  woe  which  the  Lord  pronounced,  Luke  vi. 
25,  has  come  upon  them  ;  for  this  fulness  has  prevented  them  from  dis- 
covering their  emptiness  of  things  heavenly ;  the  divine  hunger,  the 
hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness,  has  never  been  awakened  in  their 
souls.  But  "  the  remnant  took  his  servants,  and  entreated  them  spitefully, 
and  slew  them.'^  The  oppositions  to  the  Gospel  are  not  merely  natural, 
they  are  also  devilish.  There  are  other  evils  in  man's  heart  besides  the 
worldliness  of  it,  which  are  stirred  up  by  the  word  of  the  truth.  It 
wounds  men's  pride,  it  affronts  their  self-righteousness,  and  they  visit 
on  the  bringers  of  it  the  hate  they  bear  to  itself.  Three  forms  of  out- 
rage are  enumerated  here ;  and  how  abundantly  do  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles,  and  much  else  in  the  later  Scriptures,  bear  out  all  the  three. 
They  "  took,'"  or  laid  violent  hands  on,  "  Ms  servants."  (Acts  iv.  3  ;  v. 
18;  viii.  3.)  They  "entreated  them  spitefully ;"  (Acts  v.  40  ;  xivi  5, 
19;  xvii.  5;  xxi.  30;  xxiii.  2;)  they  ^^  slew  them"  (Acts  vii.  58; 
xii.  3  ;  cf.  Matt,  xxiii.  34. )t 

"  But  when  the  king  heard  thereof,  he  was  wroth."  The  insult  was  to 
him,  and  was  intended  for  him  ;  as  in  every  case  where  an  ambassador 
is  outraged,  it  is  his  master  whom  it  is  intended  that  the  blow  shall  reach. 
(2  Sam.  X.)  .As  such  it  was  avenged;  for  the  king  "  sent  forth  his 
armies,"  that  is,  as  some  say,  his  avenging  angels,  the  armies  in  heaven, 
(Rev.  xix.  14,)  the  legions  that  are  at  his  bidding.  (Matt.  xxvi.  53 ;  1 
Kin.  xxii.  19  ;  2  Sam.   xxiv.  16,):j:  or,  it  may  be,  the  hosts  of  Rome,§ 


*  Bengel  who  is  gifted  with  such  wonderful  skill,  rem  tangere  acu,  brings  out  the 
difference  exactly  so:  Alius  per  falsam  airapKciav,  alius  per  cupiditatem  acquirendi  de- 
tentus.  And  Gerhard  suggests,  though  with  no  great  confidence,  the  same  explanation 
(Harm.  Evang.,  c.  153)  :  Quid  si  per  abeuntes  ad  negotiationem  intelligamus  eos  qui 
inhiant  opibus  adhuc  acquirendis  ;  per  abeuntes  ad  villam,  qui  male  delectantur  in  opi- 
bus  jam  ante  partis  et  acquisitis  ? 

t  To  this  part  of  the  parable,  2  Chron.  xxx.  10  supplies  an  interesting  parallel. 

When  Hezekiah  restored  the   worship  of  Jehovah  at  Jerusalem,  he  sent  messengers 

/  throughout  all  the  tribes,  inviting  all  Israel  to  share  in  the  solemn  passover  which  he 

J     was  about  to  keep,  that  is,  bidding  them  to  the  feast.     "  So  the  posts  passed  from  city 

'         to  city  .  .  .  but  they  laughed  them  to  scorn  and  mocked  them."     Yet  as  guests  were 

brought  in  to  the  marriage-supper,  so  in  this  case,  also,  "  divers  humbled  themselves 

and  came  to  Jerusalem." 

t  Gregory  the  Great  (Horn.  38  in  Evang.) :  Quid  namque  sunt  ilia  Angelorum 
agmina,  nisi  exercitus  Regis  nostri  T 

^  So  IrensBus,  Con.  Har.,  1.  4,  c.  36,  §6. 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  KING'S  SON.  179 

(Dan.  ix.  26,)  which  were  equally  "  his  armies,''^  since  even  ungodly 
men  are  men  of  God's  hand,  by  whom  he  executes  vengeance  on  other 
wicked.  (Thus  Isai.  x.  5,  "  O  Assyrian,  the  rod  of  ??ime  anger."  Thus 
too,  Isai.  xiii.  5 ;  Ezek.  xvi.  41  ;  Jer.  xxv.  9,  "  Nebuchadnezzar,  my 
servant.")  In  fact,  the  two  explanations  flow  one  into  the  other,  for  when 
God's  wrath  is  to  be  executed,  the  earthly  and  visible  ministers  of  his 
judgments  and  the  unseen  armies  of  heaven  are  evermore  leagued  to- 
gether. The  natural  eye  sees  only  those,  the  spiritual  eye  beholds  the 
other  also  behind.  It  is  ever  at  such  moments  as  it  was  with  Israel  of 
old.  (1  Chron.  xxi.  16.)  The  multitude,  to  whom  the  purged  spiritual 
eye  was  wanting,  beheld  only  the  outward  calamity,  the  wasting  pesti- 
lence, but  David  lifted  up  his  eye  and  saw  the  angel  of  the  Lord,  stand- 
ing between  the  earth  and  the  heaven,  having  a  drawn  sword  in  his  hand.* 
"  The  city  of  those  murderers^'  can  of  course  be  no  other  than  Jerusalem, 
the  central  point  of  the  Jewish  theocracy.  (Matt,  xxiii.  34,  35  ;  Luke 
xiii.  33,  34  ;  Acts  vii.  39  ;  xii.  2,  3.)  There  lies  an  awful  threat  in 
this  appellation.  It  is  their  city,  not  any  longer  the  city  of  the  great 
King,  who  owns  it  no  more  for  his  own.  With  a  similar  threatening 
Christ  says,  "  Your  house  is  left  unto  you  desolate  ;"  (Matt,  xxiii.  38  ;) 
"  your  house,"  not  mine,  for  I  no  longer  fill  it  with  my  presence.  So 
to  Moses  God  says,  "  Thy  people  have  corrupted  themselves ;"  (Exod. 
xxxii.  7;)  "  thy  people,"  not  mine;  for  the  covenant  between  him  and 
them  was  suspended  by  their  sin. 

"  Then"  (compare  Acts  xiii.  46)  "  saith  he  to  his  servants,  The  wed- 
ding is  ready,  but  they  which  were  hidden  were  not  worthy."  Their  un- 
worthiness  consisted  in  their  rejection  of  the  invitation,  even  as  the  wor- 
thiness of  those  who  did  find  a  place  at  the  festival  consisted — not  in  their 
previous  state,  for  in  that  regard  they  were  most  unworthy  of  the  honour 
of  sitting  down  at  the  king's  table,  but  in  their  acceptance  of  the  invita- 
tion.    "  Go  ye  therefore  into  the  highways,]  and  as  many  as  ye  shall 

*  Even  the  heathen  could  understand  this.  When  Troy  was  perishing,  the  poet 
describes  how  the  multitude  saw  but  their  Grecian  enemies  engaged  in  the  work  of 
destruction  ;  but  to  Eneas,  when  his  Goddess  mother  had  opened  his  eyes,  there  ap- 
peared other  foes  ;  to  him 

Apparent  dirae  facies,  inimicaque  Trojae 
Numina  magna  DeClm. 

t  It  seems  hard  to  determine  whether  these  6tc^o6ot  are  transitus  or  exitus,  (Passow 
gives  both  meanings,  Durchgang  and  Ausgang  :)  whether  the  thoroughfares,  (see  Ps.  i. 
3,LXX.,  where  the  word  is  used  for  channels  of  waters,)  or  the  outlets  leading  from 
the  city,  (Grotius  :  Viae  extra  urbem  ducentes,)  or  such  as  issued  into  its  places  and 
squares,  (Kuinoel :  Gompita  viarum,)  or  the  points  where  many  roads  or  streets  meet ; 
Chrysostom  (Horn.  69  in  Matth.,)  more  than  once  substitutes  rpUiov;.  (Schleusner: 
(Loca  ubi  plures  platae  concurrunt.)     All  these  places  have  an  equal  fitness,  in  regard 


180  THE  MARRIAGE  OP  THE  KING'S  SON. 

find,  hid  to  the  marriage."  Here  the  doctrine  so  hateful  to  Jewish  ears, 
(See  Acts  xxii.  21,  22,)  the  calling  of  the  Gentiles,  and  that  by  occasion 
of  the  disobedience  of  the  Jews,  is  again  plainly  declared.  By  the 
breaking  off  of  the  natural  branches  of  the  olive,  there  shall  be  room 
made  for  the  grafting  in  of  the  wild  olive  in  their  stead,  (Rom.  xi.) — so 
Paul  sets  forth  the  same  truth  which  here  his  Lord  declares  under  the 
image  of  the  exclusion  of  the  guests,  who  in  the  natural  order  of  things 
would  best  become  the  wedding,  and  were  invited  to  it,  and  the  reception 
of  those  gathered  in  from  the  highways  in  their  stead.  Compare  Matt. 
viii.  10-12,  of  which  this  parable  is  only  the  ampler  unfolding. 

Hereupon  the  servants  "  went  out  into  the  highivays,  and  gathered  to- 
gether  all  as  many  as  they  found,  both  had  and  good."  In  the  spirit  of 
this  command,  "  Philip  went  down  to  the  city  of  Samaria,  and  preached 
Christ  unto  them"  there  ;  (Acts  viii.  5  ;)  Peter  baptized  Cornelius  and 
his  company  ;  and  Paul  declared  unto  the  men  of  Athens  how  God  now 
commanded  "  all  men  everywhere  to  repent."  When  it  is  said  they  ga- 
thered in  "  had"  as  well  as  "good," — in  which  words  there  is  a  passing 
over  from  the  thing  signifying  to  the  thing  signified,  since  moral  quali- 
ties would  scarcely  be  attributed  to  the  guests  as  such, — we  are  not  to 
see  here  an  explanation  of  the  fact  that  one  should  hereafter  be  found  at 
the  festival  without  a  wedding  garment ;  it  is  not  to  prepare  the  way  for 
and  to  account  for  that  fact,  that  these  different  qualities  of  the  guests  are 
mentioned.  "  Bad"  heve  is  not  equivalent  Xo  "  not  having  a  wedding 
garment"  there  ;  on  the  contrary,  many  were  "  had"  when  invited,  who, 
through  accepting  the  invitation,  passed  into  the  number  of  the  "good;" 
for  here  the  beautiful  words  of  Augustine,  concerning  Christ's  love  to 
,his  Church,  find  their  application,  "  he  loved  her  when  she  was  foul,  that 
he  might  make  her  fair."*  Neither  may  the  terms  "  had  and  good," 
and  least  of  all  the  latter,  be  pressed  too  far ;  for  speaking  with  strict 
accuracy,  none  are  good  till  they  have  been  incorporated  into  the  body 
of  Christ  and  are  sharers  in  his  Spirit.     Yet,  at  the  same  time,  few  will 

of  being  places  of  resort,  where  the  servants  might  hope  soon  to  gather  a  company. 
But  we  must  not  permit  the  English  expression,  "  highways,"  to  make  us  think  of 
places  in  the  country  as  contradistinguished  from  the  town,  whither  the  servants  were 
sent ;  the  image  throughout  the  parable  is  of  a  city,  in  which  the  rich  and  great  and 
noble,  those  who  naturally  would  be  selected  for  a  king's  guests,  refuse  to  come  to  his 
banquet,  whereupon  the  poor  of  the  same  city  are  brought  in  to  share  it. 

*  Fcedam  amavit  ut  pulcram  faceret, — a  thought  which  he  pursues  at  length  else- 
where {in  1  Ep.  Joh.  Tract.,  9,)  among  other  things  saying :  Amavit  nos  prior  qui  sem- 
per est  pulcher.  Et  quales  amavit,  nisi  foedos  et  deformes?  Non  ideo  tamen  ut 
foedos  dimitteret,  sed  ut  mutaret  et  ex  deformibus  pulchros  faceret.  Quomodo  erimus 
pulchri?  amando  eum  qui  semper  est  pulcher.  Quantiim  in  te  crescit  amor,  tantiini 
crescit  pulchritudo,  quia  ipsa  charitas  est  animae  pulchritudo. 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  KING'S  SON.  Igl 

deny  that  there  are  different  degrees  of  moral  life,  even  anterior  to  obe- 
dience to  the  call  of  the  Gospel.  There  are  "good"  such,  for  instance, 
as  Cornelius,  or  those  Gentiles  that  were  a  law  to  themselves  ;  (Rom.  ii. 
14;)  and  "  had,'"  those  who  are  so  far  gone  in  moral  depravity,  that  to 
men  there  seems  no  hope  of  restoration  for  them  ;* — "  such  were  some 
of  you,"  says  the  apostle  to  the  Corinthians,  after  enumerating  sinners  of 
the  worst  classes.  The  Gospel  of  Christ  is  the  draw-net  which  brings 
within  its  ample  folds  both  them  who  have  been  before  honestly  striving 
after  a  righteousness  according  to  the  law,  and  those  who  have  been  ut- 
terly dead  in  trespasses  and  sins.  Its  invitation  some  of  both  classes 
accept ;   "  The  wedding  was  furnished  with  guests  " 

This,  which  was  the  conclusion  of  the  other  and  earlier  spoken  par- 
able, (Luke  xiv.  16,)  is  only  the  first  act  in  the  present.  There  is  still 
another  solemn  act  of  judgment  to  follow.  Hitherto  the  parable,  with  all 
the  prophetic  hints  and  glimpses  which  it  gives  of  the  wickedness  of  men 
and  judgments  of  God,  has  been  addressed  to  the  chief  priests  and  Pha- 
risees ;  or  generally  to  the  Jewish  nation,  in  so  far  as  it  cared  not  or  as 
it  hated  to  hear  the  glad  tidings  of  salvation.  It  is  now  for  those  who 
have  accepted  their  portion  therein,  with  an  earnest  warning  also  for 
them.  Besides  the  separation  between  those  who  come  and  those 
who  refuse  to  come,  it  shall  be  also  tried  at  the  last  who-  amono- 
the  actual  comers  have  walked  worthy  of  their  vocation  and  who 
not ;  and  according  to  this  rule  there  shall  be  a  second  sifting  and  sepa- 
ration. We  have  had  the  judgment  on  the  avowed  foe  :  that  on  the  false 
friend  is  yet  to  find  place. 

But  however  it  was  the  servants'  work  to  gather  in  the  guests  to 
the  heavenly  banquet,  it  is  not  their  office  here,  any  more  than  in  the 
parable  of  the  Tares,  to  separate  finally  and  decisively  between  the  wor- 
thy partakers  and  the  unworthy  intruders.  And  indeed  how  should  it 
be  ?  for  the  garment  which  distinguishes  these  from  those  is  worn,  not 
on  the  body,  but  on  the  heart  :f  and  only  "  the  Lord   trieth  the  hearts." 

*  Jerome,  on  these  "  had  and  good  :"  Inter  ipsos  quoque  Ethnicos  est  diversitas 
infinita,  quum  sciamus  alios  esse  proclives  ad  vitia  et  ruentes  ad  mala,  alios  ob  honest- 
atem  morum  virtutibus  deditos.  Augustine's  conflict  with  the  Pelagians  would  have 
hindered  him  from  expressing  himself  exactly  in  these  last  words,  and  he  will  only 
allow  these  "  good"  to  be  minus  mali  than  the  others.  Yet  he  too  is  most  earnest 
against  the  abuse  of  these  words,  which  should  argue  for  allowing  men  to  come  to 
baptism  without  having  faithfully  renounced,  as  far  as  human  eye  could  see,  all  their 
past  ungodliness ;  for  that  were  to  make  the  servants  of  the  householder  themselves 
the  sowers  of  the  tares.  (De  Fide  et  Oper.,  c.  17.)  Ambrose  {Exp.  in  Luc,  1. 
7,  c.  202)  :  Jubet  bonos  et  malos  introire  ut  bonos  augeat,  malorum  affectum  in 
m^liora  commutet :  ut  compleretur  illud  quod  lectum  est :  Tunc  lupi  et  agni  simul 
pascentur. 
•  t  Augustine :  Vestis  quippe  ilia  in  corde,non  in  came,  inspiciebatur. 


182  THE  MARRIAGE  OP  THE  KING'S  SON. 

We  may  presume  that  it  pertained  to  the  dignity  of  the  king,  that  he 
should  not  appear  at  the  festival  till  all  were  assembled,  nor  indeed  till 
all  had  now  occupied  their  places  at  the  banquet ;  for  so  much  is  im- 
plied in  the  word  by  which  now  the  guests  are  described.*  But  then, 
when  he  "  came  in  to  see  the  guests,  he  saw  there  a  man  which  had  not  on 
a  wedding  garment."  Among  the  guests,  ranged  in  order  and  splendid- 
ly apparelled,  his  eye  at  once  detected  one  who  lacked  the  apparel  that 
became  a  guest  admitted  to  a  royal  festival.  Him  he  addresses,  as  yet 
with  a  gentle  compellation,  for  it  was  yet  to  be  seen  whether  he  could  ex- 
plain away  his  apparent  contempt ;  "  Friend,  hoio  earnest  thou  in  hither, 
not  having^  a  wedding  garment  ?''  But  he  could  not ;  "  he  was  speech- 
less:' 

But  why  could  he  not  answer  that  it  was  unreasonable  to  expect  of 
him,  brought  in  of  a  sudden  and  without  notice  from  the  highways,  to 
be  furnished  with  such — that  he  was  too  poor  to  provide, — or  that  no  time 
had  been  allowed  him  to  go  home  and  fetch, — such  a  garment  ?  Some, 
willing  to  get  rid  of  any  semblance  of  harshness  in  the  after  conduct  of 
the  king,  maintain  that  it  was  customary  in  the  East,  when  kings  or 
great  personages  made  an  entertainment,  that  costly  dresses  should  be 
by  them  presented  to  the  guests.  Such  a  custom,  they  say,  is  here  tacitly 
assumed,  so  that  this  guest  could  only  have  now  appeared  not  having 
such  a  garment,  because  he  had  rejected  it  when  offered  to  him  ;  and 
had  thus  both  despised  the  grace  done  to  him  in  the  gift,  and  had  also 
by  that  rejection  plainly  declared  that  he  counted  his  ordinary  work- 
day apparel,  soiled  and  stained  as  it  may  probably  have  been,  sufficiently 
good  in  which  to  appear  in  the  presence  of  the  king,  being  guilty  thus 
of  a  twofold  offence.  Ernesti,  however,  and  others,  have  denied  that 
any  certain  traces  of  such  a  custom  are  anywhere  to  be  found,  affirm- 
ing that  the  only  notice  which  we  have  of  anything  like  it,  is  the  mod- 

*  To5j  aiuKtinivovi.  In  the  Vulgate,  Biscumbentes ;  Wiclif,  The  men  sitting  at 
the  meat. 

t  We  may  observe  that  it  is  the  subjective,  and  not  the  objective,  particle  of  nega- 
tion, which  is  here  used,  jif)  and  not  oi — ^ij  e'xuv  hiv^a  ycjiov,  "  not  having  (and  know- 
ing that  thou  hadst  not)  the  wedding  garment ;"  with  a  consciousness  that  it  was 
wanting. — The  i'fSvua  yaiwv  is  not  exactly  the  lixdnov  wii^tKdv  of  Plutarch,  (Amator. 
10),  for  that  is  the  garment  not  of  the  guests,  but  of  the  bridegroom  ;  nor  yet  the 
iaOfis  vvfjKptKTi  of  Chariton,  1,  p.  6,  which  is  that  of  the  bride.  (Becker's  Charikles,  v. 
2,  p.  467.)  Yet  there  may  lie  under  the  use  of  this  phrase,  which  seems  at  first  fitter 
to  set  forth  the  array  of  the  bridegroom  than  that  of  the  invited  guests,  that  the  true 
adornment  of  each  of  these  at  the  spiritual  marriage  is  identical  with  that  of  the 
bridegroom  :  from  him  they  have  it ;  it  is  of  the  same  kind  as  that  which  he  wears 
himself;  for  they  who  are  rightly  arrayed  have  put  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  and  ^s 
he  is,  so  are  they  in  the  world. 


THE  MARRIAGE  OP  THE  KING'S  SON.  183 

ern  custom  of  clothing  with  a  caftan  those  that  are  admitted  into  the 
presence  of  the  Sultan. 

But,  while  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  the  passage  (Judg.  xiv.  13) 
often  adduced  in  proof,  fails  to  prove  anything  :  and  that,  perhaps,  dis- 
tinct evidence  is  not  forthcoming  of  any  such  practice  as  that  assumed, 
yet  we  know  enough  of  the  undoubted  customs  of  the  East  to  make  it 
extremely  probable  that  presents  of  dresses  were  often  distributed 
among  the  guests  at  a  marriage  festival,  especially  one  like  the  present, 
celebrated  with  great  pomp  and  magnificence  ;  so  that  our  Lord's  hear- 
ers, to  whom  those  customs  must  have  been  familiar,  would  have  un- 
consciously supplied  the  gap  in  the  narration,  and  taken  for  granted 
such  a  gift  going  before,  especially  when  they  found  so  severe  a  pen- 
alty inflicted  upon  this  guest,  for  a  want  which  otherwise  he  could  not 
well  have  avoided.  We  know  in  the  first  place,  that  it  was  part  of  the 
state  and  magnificence  of  kings  and  wealthy  persons  in  the  East,  to  have 
great  store  of  costly  dresses  laid  up,  as  at  the  present  day  a  great  portion 
of  their  wealth  is  very  commonly  invested  in  numerous  changes  of 
costly  apparel.  (Job  xxviii.  16  ;  Isai.  iii.  6  ;  Jam.  v.  2 ;  2  Kin.  x.  22.)* 
Keeping  this  in  mind,  we  need  not  suppose  that  the  number  of  guests, 
however  great,  would  have  created  any  embarrassment.  We  know 
moreover  that  costly  dresses  were  often  given  as  honourable  presents, 
marks  of  especial  favour,  (Gen.  xlv.  22  ;  1  Sam.  xviii.  4  j  2  Kin.  v.  5  ; 
Dan.  V.  7  ;  Est.  vi.  8  ;  1  Mace.  x.  20  ;)  that  they  were  then,  as  now, 
the  most  customary  gifts  ; — and  marriage  festivals  (Est.  ii.  18)  and  other 
occasions  of  festal  rejoicing  (2  Sam.  vi.  19)  were  naturally  those  upon 
which  gifts  were  distributed  with  the  largest  hand.  If  the  gift  took  the 
form  of  costly  raiment,  it  would  reasonably  be  expected  that  it  should 
be  worn  at  once,  as  part  of  the  purpose  of  the  distribution  would  else 
be  lost,  which  was  to  testify  openly  the  magnificence  and  liberality  of  the 
giver,  and  also  to  add  to  the  splendour  and  glory  of  the  festal  time, — not 
to  say  that  the  rejection  of  a  gift,  or  the  appearance  of  a  slight  put  upon 
it,  is  ever  naturally  esteemed  as  a  slight  and  contempt  not  of  that  gift 
only,  but  also  of  the  giver. f 


*  The  story  told  by  Horace  of  the  five  thousand  mantles  which  Lucullus,  on  ex- 
amining  his  wardrobe,  found  that  he  possessed,  is  well  known  ;  and  this  extract  from 
Chardin  {Voy.  en  Perse,  v.  3,  p.  230,  Langles'  ed.)  a  traveller  of  whom  all  later  inqui- 
rers into  Eastern  customs  join  in  praising  the  accuracy  and  extent  of  information,  may 
be  accepted  in  proof  that  the  number  of  the  garments  needed  would  have  been  readily 
at  hand  :  On  ne  sauroit  croire  la  depense  que  fait  le  roi  de  Perse  pour  ces  presens-la. 
Le  nombre  des  habits  qu'il  donne  est  infini.  On  en  tient  toujours  ses  garde-robes 
pleines.     On  les  tient  dans  les  magazins  s6pares  par  assortiment. 

t  So  strongly  is  this  felt,  that  we  are  not  without  example  in  the  modern  history  of 


184  THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  KING'S  SON. 

But  in  addition  to  the  affront  of  rejecting  the  gift,  supposing  it  to  be 
granted  that  such  a  gift  going  before  may  be  safely  assumed,  this  guest 
was  guilty  of  a  further  affront  in  appearing  at  the  festival  in  unsuitable, 
probably  in  mean  and  sordid,  apparel.  Even  with  us  there  are  occa- 
sions when  such  conduct  would  be  felt  as  manifesting  a  serious  lack  of 
respect ;  much  more  among  the  nations  of  antiquity,  especially  those  of 
the  East,  where  outward  symbols  have  a  significance  so  far  greater  than 
with  us,  would  such  an  omission  as  that  whereof  this  guest  was  guilty, 
be  felt  as  a  grievous  affront  and  insult*  to  the  person  in  whose  honour 


the  East,  (and  Eastern  manners  so  little  change  that  modern  examples  are  nearly  as 
good  as  ancient,)  of  a  vizier  having  lost  his  life,  through  this  very  failing  to  wear  a  gar- 
ment of  honour  sent  to  him  by  the  king.  Chardin  mentions  the  circumstances ; — the 
officer  through  whose  hands  the  royal  robe  was  to  be  forwarded,  out  of  spite  sent  in  its 
stead  a  plain  habit.  The  vizier  would  not  appear  in  the  city  arrayed  in  this,  lest  it 
should  be  taken  as  an  evidence  that  he  was  in  disgrace  at  court,  and  put  on  in  its  stead  a 
royal  habit,  the  gift  of  the  late  king,  and  in  that  made  his  public  entry  into  the  city. 
When  this  was  known  at  court,  they  declared  the  vizier  a  dog,  that  he  had  disdainfully 
thrown  away  the  royal  apparel,  saying,  I  have  no  need  of  Sha  Sefi's  habits.  Their 
account  incensed  the  king,  who  severely  felt  the  affront,  and  it  cost  the  vizier  his  life. 
(Burder's  Orient.  Liter.,  v.  I,  p.  94.  Cf.  Herodotus,  1.  9,  c.  Ill,  for  an  example  of 
the  manner  in  which  the  rejecting  a  monarch's  gift  was  resented.) — Olearius  {Tra- 
vels, p.  214,)  gives  an  account  of  himself,  with  the  ambassadors  whom  he  accompanied, 
being  invited  to  the  table  of  the  Persian  king.  He  goes  on  to  say,  "  It  was  told  us  by 
the  mehmandar,  that  we  according  to  their  usage  must  hang  the  splendid  vests  that 
were  sent  us  from  the  king  over  our  dresses,  and  so  appear  in  his  presence.  The  am- 
bassadors at  first  refused  ;  but  the  mehmandar  urged  it  so  earnestly,  alleging,  as  also 
did  others,  that  the  omission  would  greatly  displease  the  king,  since  all  other  envoys 
observed  such  a  custom,  that  at  last  they  consented,  and  hanged,  as  did  we  also,  the 
splendid  vests  over  their  shoulders,  and  so  the  cavalcade  proceeded."  This  passage,  be- 
sides its  value  as  showing  us  how  the  rejection  of  the  garment  of  honour,  or  rather  the 
failing  to  appear  in  it,  would  be  felt  as  an  insult,  clears  away  any  difficulty  which 
might  have  occurred  to  any  from  the  apparent  unfitness  of  the  king's  palace  as  a  place 
for  changing  of  apparel.  In  fact,  there  was  strictly  speaking  no  such  changing  of  ap- 
parel, for  the  garment  of  honour  was  either  a  vest  drawn  over  the  other  garments,  or 
a  mantle  hung  on  the  shoulders.  Schulz,  in  his  Travels,  describes  that  given  to  him,  as 
"a  long  robe  with  loose  sleeves,  which  hang  down  (for  the  arm  is  not  put  into  them), 
the  white  ground  of  which  is  goat's  hair,  mixed  with  some  silver,  but  the  flowers  woven 
in  are  of  gold-coloured  silk  ;"  and  his  account  of  the  necessity  of  putting  it  on  before 
appearing  in  the  presence  of  the  Sultan,  agrees  with  that  given  by  the  earlier  traveller. 
(Rosenmuller's  Alte  und  Neue  Morgenl.,  v.  5,  p.  76.) 

•  Irenaeus  then  has  exactly  seized  the  right  point  when  he  says,  {Con.  Hcer.,  1. 4,  c.  36, 
§  6):  Eum,  qui  non  habet  indumentum,  nuptiarum  hoc  est,  contemptorem.  Compare  with 
this  the  exceeding  stress  which  Cicero  lays,  in  his  charges  against  Vatinius,  {In  Vatin., 
12,  13,)  on  the  fact  of  the  latter  having  once  appeared  clad  in  black  at  a  great  and 
solemn  festival  (supplicatio) — how  much  of  wanton  indignity  and  insult  he  saw  in  it, 
both  toward  the  giver  of  the  feast,  and  also  toward  the  other  guests.    "  Who  ever,"  he 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  KING'S  SON.  185 

the  more  splendid  and  becoming  apparel  ought  to  have  been  put  on ; 
and,  of  course,  the  more  honourable  the  person  the  more  serious  would  be 
the  offence.  So  that,  though  others  have  been  forward  to  say  something 
in  this  guest's  behalf, — as  that  he  could  not  help  appearing  as  he  did,  or 
that  his  fault  was  after  all  but  a  slight  one, — he  did  not  feel  that  he  had 
anything  to  say  for  himself;  "  he  teas  speechless,''  or  literally,  his  mouth 
was  stopped,  he  was  gagged,*  with  no  plea  to  allege  for  his  contemptu- 
ous behaviour;  he  stood  self-condemned,  and  judgment  therefore  imme- 
diately proceeded  against  him.  "  Then  said  the  king  to  the  servants," 
or  rather  to  the  ministering  attendants,  "  Bind  him  hand  and  foot,  and 
take  him  away,  and  cast  him  into  outer  darkness."  Within  the  palace 
was  light  and  joy,  but  without  it  was  cold  and  darkness ; — into  this  the 
unworthy  guest,  with  no  power  of  resisting  the  fulfilment  of  the  decree, 
for  his  hands  and  feet  were  first  bound,  was  to  be  cast — and  there  for 
him,  under  the  sense  of  his  shame,  and  loss  and  exclusion  from  the  glo- 
rious festival,  would  be  "weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth." 

This  brings  the  parable  to  an  end  according  to  the  letter,  yet  is  there 
much  in  this  latter  part  which  demands  an  accurate  inquiry.  When, 
it  may  first  be  asked,  does  the  king  come  in  to  see,  or  to  scrutinize,  the 
guests  ?  Not  certainly  exclusively  in  the  day  of  final  judgment,  though 
indeed  most  signally  then.  At  every  other  judgment  whereby  hypo- 
crites are  revealed,  or  self  deceivers  laid  bare  to  themselves  or  to  others, 
the  king  enters  in  to  see,  or  rather,  diligently  to  regard, f  the  assembled 
guests :}: — at  every  time  of  trial,  which  is  also  in  its  nature  a  time  of  sep- 


asks,  "  even  in  a  time  of  domestic  grief  apreared  at  a  supper  thus  arrayed  in  black  ?" 
and  we  learn  from  that  passage,  as  from  many  others,  that  none  but  white  garments, 
which,  however,  would  afford  great  room  for  magnificence,  were  considered  becoming 
for  a  festival.  (See  Becker's  Charikles,  v.  2,  p.  469.)  It  was  the  same  among  the 
Hebrews,  for  one  exhorting  to  continual  merriment  and  festal  gladness  exclaims,  "  Let 
thy  garments  be  always  white,"  (Eccles.  ix.  8,)  that  is,  keep  a  continual  feast ; — so  we 
read  that  tohite  robes  were  given  to  the  souls  under  the  altar,  (Rev.  vi.  11,)  a  pledge  to 
them,  that  though  kept  waiting  a  while,  they  should  yet  in  a  little  season  be  admitted 
to  the  marriage-supper  of  the  Lamb ;  and  the  bride  is  arrayed  in  fine  linen,  clean  and 
white.  (Rev.  xix.  8.) 

*  'E<ptfjiw9n,  from  (jyijxds  =  tTrioro^ioi/,  a  gag.  Chrysostom  admirably  explains  it,  Kar- 
tKptvev  cavTuv.  Such  gags,  (in  Latin,  camus,)  were  actually  in  use,  not  merely  for 
beasts,  but  sometimes  for  rebellious  slaves,  or  criminals  on  their  way  to  execution. 
(See  Schoettgen's  Hor.  Heb.,  v.  1,  p.  241,  and  the  Param.  Gmci,  Oxf  1G36,  p.  41.) 
The  word  is  used  in  its  literal  sense,  1  Tim.  v.  18. 

+  Qcaofxai,  which  is  the  word  here,  Schleusner  explains :  Fixis  ac  intentis  oculis  as- 
picio  et  intueor  ad  rem  aliquam  considerandam  et  dijudicandam.  In  the  Vulgate,  Ut 
videret  discumbentes :  the  old  Italic  had  better,  Ut  inspiceret  discumbentes. 

t  Augustine  :  Intrat  Deus  judicio,  qui  foris  manet  tolerando  :  and  the  Auct.  Oper. 

13 


^' 


186  THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  KING'S  SON. 

aration,  a  time  when  the  thoughts  of  many  hearts  are  laid  bare  ; 
though  for  the  day  of  the  last  judgment  the  complete  and  final  separa- 
tion is  of  course  reserved,  and  then  all  that  has  been  partially  fulfilling 
in  one  and  another  will  be  completely  fulfilled  in  all. 

Some  would  not  leave  out  of  sight  the  singleness  of  the  guest  without 
the  wedding  garment,  but  seek  to  hold  it  fast  in  the  interpretation. 
They  have  suggested  that  Judas  may  perhaps  be  immediately  pointed 
out.*  It  is  certainly  not  impossible  that  a  gracious  Lord,  who  suffers 
none  to  perish  without  warning,  may  have  meant  a  merciful  warning 
for  him  here.  This,  at  any  rate,  were  a  more  tolerable  supposition 
than  that  of  Vitringa,  Cocceius,  and  others, f  of  the  historico-prophet- 
ical  school,  to  wit,  that  it  is  the  man  of  sin,  by  whom  they  understand 
the  Pope.  It  is  hardly,  however,  probable  that  any  single  person  is  in- 
tended, but  rather  under  this  one  a  great  multitude  :  for  the  "/ezo  " 
presently  said  to  be  "  cJwsen"  in  comparison  to  the  "  many  called^' 
would  seem  to  imply  that  there  had  been  a  great  sifting.  Why  these 
many  excluded  should  be  here  represented  as  a  single  person  has  been 
explained  in  different  ways.  Townson  instances  it  as  an  example  of 
what  he  happily  calls  "the  lenity  of  supposition,^'  which  finds  place  in 
our  Lord's  parables  ;  as  he  instances  in  like  manner  there  being  but  one 
servant  who  failed  to  turn  his  lord's  money  to  account.  Gerhard  gives 
an  ingenious  reason, — that  "  if  many  had  been  thrust  out  from  the  mar- 
riage, the  nuptial  festivities  would  have  seemed  to  have  been  disturbed." 
But  he  is  on  a  truer  track,  when  he  observes  how  the  fact  of  his  being 
but  one,  brings  the  matter  home  to  every  man  :  "  So  diligent  and  exact 
will  be  the  future  scrutiny,  that  not  so  much  as  one  in  all  that  great 
multitude  of  men,  shall  on  the  last  day  escape  the  piercing  eyes  of  the 
Judge.":]:     Nor  is  there  any  difficulty  in  thus  contemplating  the  whole 

Imperf. :  Tunc  regem  ingredi,  quando  Deus  tentat  homines,  ut  appareat  quantum  quis- 
que  virtutis  habeat,et  an  loco,  quern  in  Ecclesia  tenet,  dignus  sit. 

*  Thus  Pseudo-Athanasius,  (De  Farab.  Script.,)  and  in  later  times  Weisse.  (Evatig. 
Gesch.,v.  2,  p.  114.) 

t  As  GuRTLEK,  Syst.  Theol.  Proph.,  p.  676.  He  finds  a  confirmation  of  this  view 
in  the  fact,  that  the  man  is  addressed  as  haXpc :  Antichristus  singulariler  est  Irarpoj,  vi- 
carium  iliius  se  venditans,  et  solio  ejus  solium  nequitiae  associans ! — The  Jews  have  a 
curious  tradition  about  Esau,  who  is  their  standing  type  of  Antichrist,  that  he  will  be 
such  a  guest  thrust  out  from  the  kingdom  of  God.  It  is  found  in  the  Jerusalem  Tal- 
mud, and  is  as  follows  :  "  Esau  the  wicked  will  veil  himself  with  his  mantle,  and  sit 
among  the  righteous  in  Paradise  in  the  world  to  come  ;  and  the  holy  blessed  God  will 
draw  him  and  bring  him  out  from  thence,  which  is  the  sense  of  those  words,  Obad.  4, 6." 

t  Cajetan  the  same  :  Subtilis  discretio  in  tanta  multitudine  describitur  ;  quia  enim 
ita  omnes  Deus  videt  ut  singulorum  singillatim  curara  habeat,  ide6  unus  describitur 
visus  homo. 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  KING'S  SON.  187 

multitude  of  evil-doers  as  a  single  person.  For  as  the  righteous  are  one, 
being  gathered  under  their  one  head,  which  is  Christ,  so  the  congrega- 
tion  of  the  wicked  are  one,  being  gathered  also  under  their  one  head, 
which  is  Satan.  The  mystical  Babylon  is  one  city  no  less  than  the 
mystical  Jerusalem.  There  is  a  kingdom  of  darkness  as  well  as  a 
kingdom  of  God.* 

But  concerning  the  wedding  garment  itself,  it  has  been  abundantly 
disputed  what  spiritual  grace  or  gift  he  lacked,  who  was  lacking  in  this. 
It  is  well  known  that  the  Romanists  have  been  eager  to  press  this  pas- 
sage into  their  service,  in  the  controversy  concerning  the  relative  value 
of  faith  and  charity.  But  when  they  assert  that  it  must  have  been  char- 
ity in  which  this  guest  was  deficient,  and  not  faith, — for  that  he  had 
faith,  since  he  would  not  have  been  present  at  the  feast  at  all  unless  ex- 
ternally a  believer,  they  are  merely  taking  advantage  of  the  double 
meaning  of  the  word  faith,  and  playing  off  the  occasional  use  of  it  as  a 
bare  assent  to  the  truth,  against  St.  Paul's  far  deeper  use  of  the  word,- — 
and  this  most  unfairly,  for  they  must  know  that  it  is  only  in  the  latter 
sense  of  the  word  that  any  would  attribute  this  guest's  exclusion  to  his 
wanting  faith.  Were  it  needful  to  decide  absolutely  for  one  or  other  of 
these  interpretations  of  the  wedding  garment,  I  would  far  sooner  accept 
the  other,  as  infinitely  the  deepest  and  truest,  since  the  slower  may  be 
said  to  be  contained  in  the  root,  but  not  the  root  in  t-'ie  flower,  and  so 
charity  in  faith,  but  not  faith  in  charity  ."I"  There  iS  however  no  need 
to  decide  for  either  interpretation,  so  as  to  exclude  ihe  other.  The  great 
teachers  in  the  early  Church  did  not  put  themselves  in  contradiction  to 
one  another,  when  some  of  them  asseited  that  what  the  intruder  was  de- 
ficient in  was  charity,  and  others  faith  ;  nay,  the  same  writer,:}:  without 


*  Augustine  (Enarr.  in  Ps.  Ixi.  4) :  Lcratus  est  de  convivio  et  missus  in  poenas 
nescio  quis  homo  in  tam  magna  turba  recumbentium.  Sed  tamen  Dominus  volens  os- 
tendere  unum  ilium  hominem,  unum  corpus  esse  quod  constat  ex  multis,  ubi  jussit  eum 
projici  foras,  et  mitti  in  debitas  poenas,  subjecit  continuo,  Multi  enim  sunt  vocati,  pauci 
vero  electi .  .  .  Qui  sunt  electi,  nisi  qui  remanserant?  Projecto  uno,  electi  remanse- 
runt.  Quomodo,  projecto  uno  de  multis,  pauci  electi  nisi  in  illo  uno  multi?  See  also 
Con.  Don.,  post  Coll.,  c.  20.  We  have  just  the  reverse  of  this,  1  Cor.  ix.  24.  There 
the  whole  number  of  the  elect  are  included  in  the  "  one  that  receiveth  the  prize." 

t  Ignatius  {Ad  Ephes.,  14)  calls  the  twain,  dp'xh  ^oifjs  kuI  tcXoj  •  apxh  f^iv  T^iarts,  H- 

Xoj  it  ayULTTr). 

X  Thus  Ambrose  {De  Fide,  1.  4,  c.  1)  speaks  of  the  nuptiale  fidei  vestimentum — 
while  elsewhere  {Be  Fcenit.,  1.  1,  c.  6)  he  says  :  lUe  rejicitur  qui  non  habet  vestera 
nuptialem,  hoc  est,  amictum  caritatis,  velamen  gratias  ; — and  again  uniting  his  two 
former  expositions  (£a:p.  in  Luc,  I.  7,  c.  204):  Vestem  nuptialem,  hoc  est,  fidem  et 
caritatem.  In  the  same  way  Augustine  {Ser7n.  xc.)  joins  them  both:  Habete  fidem 
cum  dilectione.     Ista  est  vestis  nuptialis.     The  Auct.  Oper.  Imperf. :  Nuptiale  vesti- 


188  THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  KING'S  SON. 

feeling  that  there  was  aught  needing  to  be  reconciled,  would  in  one 
place  give  the  one  interpretation,  and  elsewhere  the  other.  For  what 
this  guest  lacked  was  righteousness,  both  in  its  root  of  faith  and  its  flow- 
er  of  charity.  He  had  not,  according  to  the  pregnant  image  of  Paul, 
here  peculiarly  appropriate, — "  put  on  Christ;" — in  which  putting  on 
of  Christ,  both  faith  and  charity  are  included, — faith  as  the  power  put- 
ting on,  charity  or  holiness  as  the  thing  put  on.*  By  faith  we  recog- 
nize a  righteousness  out  of  and  above  us,  and  which  yet  is  akin  to  us, 
and  wherewith  our  spirits  can  be  clothed,  which  righteousness  is  in 
Christ,  who  is  the  Lord  our  Righteousness.  And  this  righteousness  by 
the  appropriative  and  assimilative  power  of  faith  we  also  make  ours ; 
we  are  clothed  upon  with  it,  so  that  it  becomes,  in  that  singularly  ex- 
pressive  term,  our  hahit,-\ — the  righteousness   imputed  has  become  also 

mentum  est  fides  vera  quae  est  per  Jesum  Christum  et  justitiam  ejus ;  see  also  Basil  (on 
Uai.  ix.)  for  a  like  interpretation.  Yet  no  one  would  deny  the  other  to  be  the  side 
upon  which  the  Fathers  more  frequently  contemplate  the  wedding  garment,  as  charity, 
or  sanctity.  Thus  Irenaeus  (Con.  Hair.,  1.  4,  c.  36,  §6) :  Qui  vocati  ad  CEenam  Dei, 
propter  malam  conversationem  non  perceperunt  Spiritum  Sanctum  ;  and  Hilary:  Ves- 
titus  nuptia'iis  est  gloria  SpiritCls  Sancti  et  candor  habitus  coelestis,  qui  bonae  interroga- 
tionis  confessione  susceptus  usque  in  caetum  regni  ccelorum  immaculatus  et  integer 
reservatur.  So  Gregory  the  Great,  Horn.  38  in  Evang.  Yet  Grotius  affirms  too  much 
when  he  says  :  Ita  veteres  magno  consensu  ad  hunc  locum.  And  this  is  the  predomi- 
nant, though  not  I  thii.k  the  exclusive,  sense  given  to  it  in  our  Exhortation  to  the  Holy 
Communion  ;  with  which  compare  Chrysostom,  Horn.  3,  in  Ephes.,  quoted  by  Bing- 
ham. (Christ.  Anit.,  b.  15,  c.  4,  §2.) 

*  Even  so  Gerhard,  to  wlnse  most  useful  collection  of  passages  I  have  been  very 
much  indebted  in  this  parable,  explains  it :  Vestis  nuptialis  Christus  est,  qui  et  sponsus 
et  cibus  est  in  his  nuptiis.  Christuvr.  autem  induimus  tum  fide  ejus  meritum  apprehend- 
endo,  ut  nuditas  nostra  coram  Dei  ju(]'.cio  ipsius  justitia  tanquam  pretiosa  veste  tegatur, 
tum  sancta  vita  conversatione,  qua,  ipbius  vestigiis  insistimus,  (Rom.  xiii.  14,)  ciim 
Christus  non  solum  nobis  datus  sit  in  donutn,  sed  etiam  propositus  in  exemplum  ; — and 
Jerome's  words  are  remarkable :  Vestem  tiuptialem,  hoc  est,  vestem  superccelestis 
hominis, — as  he  explains  the  sordid  garment  as  veteris  hominis  exuvias. — One  might 
here  bring  forward  as  illustrative  a  passage  from  v^e  Shepherd  of  Hermas,  I.  3,  sim.  9, 
c.  13.  He  sees  in  his  vision  some  virgins,  and  asks  who  they  are  ;  it  is  answered  that 
they  represent  the  chief  Christian  virtues:  Spiritus  sancti  sunt,  non  aliter  enim  homo 
potest  in  regnum  Dei  intrare  nisi  hae  induerint  eum  veste  su^.  Etenim  nil  proderit  tibi 
accipere  nomen  filii  Dei,  nisi  etiam  et  vestem  earum  acceperis  ab  eis. 

t  This  image  runs  remarkably  through  the  whole  of  Scripture,  its  frequent  use  be- 
ing a  witness  for  its  peculiar  fitness.  Thus  we  are  bidden  to  put  on  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  (Rom.  xiii.  14,)  to  put  off  the  old,  to  put  on  the  new,  man,  (Col.  iii.  10  ;  Ephes. 
iv.  22,)  to  put  on  the  various  pieces  of  the  panoply  of  God  ;  (Ephes.  vi.  13-16  ;  1  Thess. 
V.  8  ;)  baptism  is  a  putting  on  of  Christ.  (Gal.  iii.  27.)  See  further,  Rom.  xiii.  12 ; 
Ezek.  xvi.  10 ;  Isai.  Ixi.  10  ;  Sirac.  vi.  31  ;  and  Schoettgen,  (Hot.  Heb.,  v.  1,  p.  699,) 
shows  that  the  mystery  of  putting  on  a  righteousness  from  above  was  not  wholly  hid- 
den from  the  Jews — many  of  the  passages  which  he  quotes  being  truly  remarkable. 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  KING'S  SON.  X89 

a  righteousness  infused,  and  is  in  us  charity  or  holiness,  or  more  accu- 
rately still,  constitutes  the  complex  of  all  Christian  graces  as  they  abide 
in  the  man  and  show  themselves  in  his  life. 

The  wedding  garment  then  is  righteousness  in  its  largest  sense,  the 
whole  adornment  of  the  new  and  spiritual  man, — including  the  faith 
without  which  it  is  impossible  to  please  God,  and  the  holiness  without 
which  no  man  shall  see  him,  or,  like  this  guest,  shall  only  see  him  to 
perish  at  his  presence  : — it  is  the  faith  which  is  the  root  of  all  graces, 
the  mother  of  all  virtues,  and  it  is  likewise  those  graces  and  those  vir- 
tues themselves.  Let  us  contemplate  this  guest  as  a  self-righteous  per- 
son, who  is  making  and  trusting  in  a  righteousness  of  his  own,  instead 
of  believing  in  a  righteousness  of  Christ's,  imputed  and  imparted, — or 
let  us  see  in  him  a  more  ordinary  sinner,  who  with  the  Christian  pro- 
fession and  privileges  is  yet  walking  after  the  lusts  of  the  flesh  in  unho- 
liness  and  sin,  in  either  case  the  image  holds  good ; — he  is  rejecting 
something,  even  the  true  robe  of  his  spirit,  which  has  been  freely  given 
to  him  at  his  baptism,*  and  which  if  he  has  since  let  go,  he  may  yet,  on 
the  strength  of  that  gift,  freely  at  any  moment  claim  ; — he  is  a  despiser, 
counting  himself  good  enough  merely  as  he  is  in  himself,  in  the  flesh 
and  not  in  the  spirit,  to  appear  in  the  presence  of  God.  But  a  time  ar- 
rives when  every  man  will  discover  that  he  needs  another  covering,  an- 
other array  for  his  soul.  It  is  woe  unto  him,  who  like  this  guest  only 
discovers  it  when  it  is  too  late  to  provide  himself  with  such;  and  then 
suddenly  stands  confessed  to  himself  in  all  his  moral  nakedness  and  de- 
filement. It  was  the  king's  word  which  struck  the  intruder  speechless 
— so  it  will  be  the  light  of  God  shining  round  and  shining  in  upon  the 
sinner,  which  will  at  the  last  day  reveal  to  him  all  the  hidden  things  of 
his  heart,  all  that  evil,  of  the  greater  part  of  which  he  has  hitherto  wiU 
fully  chosen  to  be  ignorant,  but  of  which  now  he  can  remain  ignorant 
no  longer.  We  may  well  understand  how  he  also,  like  the  unworthy 
guest,  will  be  speechless,  that  however  forward  he  may  have  been  in 
other  times  to  justify  himself,  in  that  day  his  mouth  will  be  stopped  ;  he 
will  not  even  pretend  to  offer  any  excuse,  or  to  plead  any  reason  why 
judgment  should  not  proceed  against  him  at  once. 

The  ministering  attendants  here,  who  are  different  both  in  name  and 

The  figure  has  passed  on  to  the  heavenly  kingdom  ;  as  grace  is  put  on  here,  so  glory 
there.  "  He  that  overcometh,  the  same  shall  be  clothed  in  white  raiment."  (Rev.  iii. 
5  ;  iv.  4  ;  vi.  11  ;  vii.  9  ;  2  Esd.  ii.  39, 45.)  In  the  book  of  Enoch  these  garments  are  called 
vestes  vitae.  See  Eisenmenger's  Entd.  Judenthum,  (v.  2,  p.  310,)  where  it  is  said  of 
the  angels,  that  according  to  the  Jewish  tradition  they  strip  off  the  giave-clothes  from 
every  one  who  enters  Paradise,  and  clothe  him  in  white  and  glistering  raiment. 
*  See  one  of  Schleiermacher's  Taufreden,  in  his  Predigten,  v.  4,  p.  787. 


190  THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  KING'S  SON. 

office  from  the  servants  who  invited  and  brought  in  the  guests,*  can  be 
no  other  than  the  angels  who  "  shall  gather  out  of  his  kingdom  all  things 
that  offend,  and  them  that  do  iniquity."  (Matt.  xiii.  41,  49  ;  Luke 
xix.  24.)  These  are  bidden  to  "hind  Mm  hand  and  foot,"  which  by 
some  is  made  to  mean  that  upon  the  sinner  the  night  is  come,  in  which 
no  man  can  work,  that  for  him  all  opportunity  of  doing  better  is  gone 
by ;  though  I  should  rather  see  in  it  the  sign  of  the  helplessness  to 
which  in  a  moment  every  proud  striver  against  God  is  reduced. f  The 
hands  by  the  aid  of  which  resistance,  the  feet  by  Avhose  help  escape, 
might  have  been  meditated,  are  alike  deprived  of  all  power  and  motion. 
(Acts  xxi.  11.)  In  the  command  "  Take  him  away"  is  implied  the  sin- 
ner's exclusion  from  the  Church  now  glorious  and  triumphant  in  hea- 
ven, the  perfected  kingdom  of  God.:}:  (Matt.  xiii.  48;  2  Thess.  i.  9.) 
Nor  is  the  penalty  merely  privative :  it  is  not  only  this  loss  of  good, 
but  also  the  presence  of  evil,§  They  shall  "  cast  him  into  outer  dark- 
ness ;"  so  called  because  it  lies  wholly  beyond  and  external  to  God's 
kingdom  of  light  and  joy.|j  For  as  light  is  contemplated  as  the  element 
of  that  kingdom,  so  whatever  is  beyond  and  without  that  kingdom  is 
darkness — the  "  outer  darkness"  girdling  round  the  kingdom  of  light, 
and  into  which  all  fall  back,  who  refusing  to  walk  in  the  light  of  God's 

*  Those  were  Sov\oi,  these  are  Staxovoi.  (John  ii.  5,  9.)  They  here  appear  as  lic- 
tors — that  name,  from  ligare,  having  allusion  to  this  very  function  of  binding  the 
hands  and  feet  of  condemned  criminals. 

t  H.  de  Sto  Victore  ;  Ligatis  manibus  et  pedibus,  id  est,  ablata  penitus  potestate 
ben^  operandi :  but  I  rather  follow  Grotius :  Notat  to  ^fta^ov  xal  to  aipcvKTov  irrogati 
divinitus  supplicii.  Taking  it  in  this  meaning,  Zech.  v.  8  will  supply  an  instructive 
parallel.  The  woman  whose  name  is  "  Wickedness"  sitting  securely  in  the  ephah, 
the  great  measure  of  God's  judgments,  which  she  has  filled,  is  forcibly  thrust  down  into 
it ;  and  the  mouth  of  it  is  then  stopped  with  the  huge  mass  of  lead,  that  she  may  never 
raise  herself  again.  Jerome  (in  loc.) :  Angelus  praecipitem  misit  in  medium  amphorae 
.  .  .  ac  ne  forte  rursum  elevaret  caput,  et  sua  iniquitate  et  impietate  gauderet,  talentum 
plumbi  in  modum  gravissimi  lapidis  mittit  in  os  amphorae,  ut  Impietatem  in  medio  oppri- 
mat  alque  concludat,ne  quo  modo  possit  erumpere.  The  women  with  wings,  who  bear 
away  the  ephah,  will  further  answer  to  the  servants  here  ;  and  the  outer  darkness  here 
to  the  land  of  Shinar,  the  profane  land,  whither  the  vessel  and  its  burden  are  borne. 
The  whole  vision  too  (v.  5-11)  has  its  similarity  to  this  parable  ;  for  that  and  this 
speak  alike  of  the  cleansing  of  the  Church  by  judgment-acts  of  separation  upon  the 
sinners  in  it. 

X  It  is  interesting  to  compare  Zeph.  i.  7,  8  :  "  The  Lord  hath  prepared  a  sacrifice, 
he  hath  bid  his  guests.  And  it  shall  come  to  pass  in  the  day  of  the  Lord's  sacrifice, 
that  I  will  punish  the  princes  and  the  king's  children,  and  all  such  as  are  clothed 
with  strange  apparel."     (ivitivjuvovi  ivHjiaTa  d\\6Tpta.     LXX.) 

§  Augustine,  Serm.  31,  c.  5. 

II  Peter  Lombard  (1.  4,  dist.  50)  ;  Extcriores  fcnebrtc  erunt,  quia  tunc  peccatorcs 
penitus  erunt  extra  Deum....Secludentur  penitus  a,  luce  Dei. 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  KING'S  SON.  jgi 

truth,  fail  to  attain  in  the  end  to  the  light  of  everlasting  life.  (Compare 
Wisd,  xvii.  21  ;  xviii.  1.)  On  the  words  following,  "  There  shall  be 
weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth,''  there  has  been  occasion  to  say  something 
already.* 

The  parable  terminates  like  that  of  the  Labourers  in  the  Vineyard 
with  that  weighty  saying,  "  Many  are  called,  but  feto  are  chosen,"  which 
refers  not  merely  to  the  expulsion  of  this  unworthy  guest ;  but  in  the 
"  called  "  and  not  "  chosen  "  must  be  included  those  others  also,  that  did 
not  so  much  as  seem  (which  he  had  done)  to  embrace  the  invitation,  and 
who  expiated  their  contumacy  in  the  destruction  of  themselves  and  their 
city.  And  these  words  do  but  state  a  truth  which  had  long  before  been 
finding  its  fulfilment  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  which,  alas  !  is  always 
accomplishing  there.  They  were  fulfilled  in  the  history  of  that  entire 
generation  which  went  out  of  Egypt — they  were  all  "called''  to  a  king- 
dom, yet  were  not  in  the  end  "  chosen  "  to  it,  since  with  most  of  them  God 
was  not  well  pleased,  and  they  died  in  the  wilderness.  (1  Cor.  x.  1-10  ; 
Heb.  iii.  7-19  ;  Jude  5.)  They  were  fulfilled  on  a  smaller  scale  in 
those  twelve  to  whom  it  was  given  first  to  see  the  promised  land — two 
only  drew  strength  and  encouragement  from  that  sight,  and  they  only 
were  "  chosen  "  to  inherit  it.  They  found  their  fulfilment  in  the  thirty 
and  two  thousand  of  Gideon's  army  :  these  all  were  "  called,"  but  only 
three  hundred  were  found  worthy,  and  in  the  end  "  chosen  "  to  be  help- 
ers in  and  sharers  of  his  victory, — such  a  sifting  and  winnowing  away 
had  there  been  before.  (Judg.  vii.)  They  were  fulfilled  too  in  a  type 
and  figure,  when  Esther  alone  of  all  the  maidens  that  were  brought  to- 
gether to  the  king's  palace  was  "chosen"  by  him,  and  found  lasting 
favour  in  his  sight.     (Esth.  ii.)f 

*  Meuschen  {N.  T.  ex  Talm.  illust.,  p.  106)  quotes  a  Jewish  parable  as  bear- 
ing some  resemblance  to  the  present.  It  is  of  a  king  who  invited  his  servants  to  a 
festival :  -  some  of  these  prepared  and  adorned  themselves,  and  waited  at  the  door  till 
he  should  pass  in,  others  said  there  would  be  time  enough  for  this,  as  the  feast  would 
be  a  long  while  in  preparing,  and  so  went  about  their  ordinary  business.  The  latter, 
when  the  king  demanded  suddenly  the  presence  of  his  guests,  had  no  time  to  change 
their  apparel,  but  were  obliged  to  appear  before  him  in  sordid  garments  as  they  were  ; 
— he  was  displeased,  and  would  not  allow  them  to  taste  of  his  banquet,  but  made 
them  stand  by  while  the  others  feasted. — But  if  this  can  be  said  to  resemble  any  of 
our  Lord's  parables,  it  is  evidently  the  Ten  Virgins,  with  which  it  should  be  compared, 
and  not  this. 

t  H.  de  Sto  Victore  {Be  Arrha  Animce,)  makes  excellent  application  of  Esther's 
history  to  the  matter  in  hand  ;  Vide  quam  multee  electae  sunt,  ut  una  eligeretur,  ilia 
scilicet  quae  occulis  Regis  formosior  et  ornatior  caeteris  videretur.  MinistWRegis  mul- 
tas  eligunt  ad  cultum.  Rex  ipse  unam  eligit  ad  thalamum.  Prima  electio  multarura 
facta  est,  secundum  Regis  praeceptionem,  secunda  electio  unius  facta  est,  secundum 


192  THE  TEN  VIRGINS. 


PARABLE  XIII. 


THE    TEN   VIRGINS. 

Matthew  xxv.  1-13. 

The  circumstances  of  a  marriage  among  the  Jews,  so  far  at  least  as 
they  supply  the  groundwork  of  the  present  parable,  are  sufficiently  well 
known,  and  have  been  abundantly  illustrated  by  writers  on  Jewish  an- 
tiquities ;  and  indeed  no  less  through  the  accounts  given  by  modern 
travellers  in  the  East, — for  the  customs  alluded  to  hold  in  full  force  to 
the  present  day,  and  form  as  important  #  part  of  the  nuptial  ceremony  as 
they  did  in  ancient  times.  The  bridegroom,  accompanied  by  his  friends, 
("the  children  of  the  bride-chamber,"  Matt.  ix.  15  ;  "  the  friends  of  the 
bridegroom,"  John  iii.  2)  ;  see  Judg.  xiv.  11,)  goes  to  the  house  of  the 
bride,  and  brings  her  with  pomp  and  gladness  (1  Mace.  ix.  37-39)  to 
his  own  home,  or  occasionally,  should  that  be  too  narrow  to  receive  the 
guests,  to  some  larger  apartment  provided  for  the  occasion.  She  is  ac- 
companied from  her  father's  house  by  her  young  friends  and  compan- 
ions,* (Ps.  xlv.  15,)  while  other  of  these,  the  virgins  of  the  parable,  at 
some  convenient  place  meet  and  join  the  procession,  and  enter  with  the 

Regis  voluntateni....Rex  summus  Regis  filius  venit  in  hunc  mundum  (quem  ipse  crea- 
verat)  desponsaresibi  uxorem  electam.uxorem  unicatn,uxorem  nuptiis  regalibus  dignam. 
Sed  quia  hunc  Judaj  humilitatis  forma  apparentem  recipere  contempsit.abjecta  est.  Et 
missi  sunt  ministri  Regis,  Apostoli  videlicet,  per  totum  mundum  congregare  animas,et 
adducere  ad  civitatem  Regis,  id  est,  ad  Sanctam  Ecclesiam....Multi  ergo  vocati  intrant 
per  fidem  Ecclesiam,  et  ibi  Sacramenta  Christi  quasi  quaedam  unguenta  et  antidota 
ad  reparaiionem  et  ad  ornatuni  animarum  praeparata  accipiunt.  Sed  quia  ore  verita- 
lis  dicitur,  Multi  sunt  vocati,  pauci  vero  electi,  non  ornnes  qui  ad  hunc  cultum  sunt 
admissi,  ad  regnum  sunt  eligendi ;  nisi  tantum  ii,  qui  sic  student  se  per  ista  niundare 
et  excolere,  ut  ci!lm  ad  Regis  prajsentiam  introducti  fuerint,  tales  inveniantur,  quos  ipse 
magis  velit  eligere  quam  reprobare.  Vide  ergo  ubi  posita  es,  et  intelliges  quid  facere 
debes.  Posuit  enim  te  Sponsus  tuus  in  triclinio,  ubi  niulieres  ornantur,  varia  pigmenta 
et  diversas  species  dedit.cibosque  regies  de  mensasua  ministrari  tibi  praecepit,  quidquid 
ad  sanitatem,  quidquid  ad  refeclionem,  quidquid  ad  reparandam  specicm,  quidquid  ad 
augendum  decorem  valere  potest,  tribuit.  Cave  ergo  ne  ad  colendam  teipsam  negli- 
gens  sis,  ne  in  nirvissimo  tuo,  cCim  in  conspectu  sponsi  hujus  repraesentata  fueris,  indig- 
na  (quod  aRit)  ejus  consoriio  inveniaris.  Praepara  te,  sicut  decet  sponsam  Regis,  et 
sponsam  Regis  coelestis,  sponsam  sponsi  immortalis. 
*  The  napQcvoi  iraTpai  of  Pindar,  Pyth.  3. 


THE  TEN  VIRGINS.  193 

rest  of  the  bridal  company  into  the  hall  of  feasting.*  Such  seems  to  me 
the  exactest  account  of  the  ceremony,  though  by  some  the  circumstances 
which  supply  the  groundwork  of  the  parable  are  given  somewhat  differ- 
ently. They  describe  the  custom  to  be  as  follows : — the  virgins  meet 
the  bridegroom,  not  as  he  is  returning  with,  but  as  he  is  going  to  fetch, 
the  bride ;  and  accompany  him  first  unto  her  home,  and  only  after  that 
to  his  own.  But  this  supposition  has  everything  against  it ;  besides 
being  inaccurate  in  itself,  and  needlessly  complicating  the  parable,  it  also 
considerably  weakens  its  moral  force ;  for  the  parable  is  certainly 
meant  to  leave  on  our  minds  the  impression  that  the  joining  of  the  bridal 
company,  for  the  purpose  of  passing  in  with  it  to  the  house  of  feasting, 
was  a  swift  and  momentary  thing,  to  be  done  upon  the  instant,  and  of 
which  if  the  opportunity  were  once  lost,  it  could  not  be  recovered.  Such 
would  not  be  the  case,  if  there  were  this  going  first  for  the  bride,  and 
only  then — after  a  considerable  pause  and  delay,  which  would  have 
naturally  taken  place  at  her  house, — a  leading  of  her  home  to  her  future 
dwelling.  Neither  can  it  be  replied  to  obviate  this  objection,  that  per- 
haps the  nuptial  feast  was  celebrated  at  the  house  of  her  parents  and 
friends,  for  this  was  as  much  contrary  to  all  the  customs  of  the  Jews 
(see  John  ii.  10,)  as  of  the  Greeks,f  and  such  a  supposition  would  se- 
riously affect  the  parable  in  its  spiritual  application. :j: 

The  marriages  in  the  East  taking  place  of  old,  as  they  do  now,  inva- 

*  See  Wolf's  latest  Journal,  p.  174,  in  addition  to  the  accounts  given  by  earlier 
travellers  and  quoted  by  Harmer  and  Burder.  Bingham  (Antt.  b.  22,  c.  4,  §  7,) 
shows  the  importance  which  was  attached  among  the  early  Christians  to  the  leading 
home  of  the  bride — so  that  without  it  the  marriage  in  some  legal  points  of  view  was 
not  considered  as  completed. 

t  See  Becker's  Charikles,  v.  2,  p.  468,  in  proof  that  the  celebration  of  the  mar- 
riage in  the  bridegroom's  house  and  not  in  the  bride's,  was  at  least  the  rule. 

t  One  would  not  lay  any  stress  on  the  fact  that  some  of  the  earliest  versions  read, 
"  went  forth  to  meet  the  bridegroom  and  the  bride  ;"  since  this  reading  has  been  uni- 
versally rejected, — except  as  it  gives  an  evidence  of  the  light  in  which  the  circumstance 
was  looked  at  by  some,  who  probably  were  familiar  with  the  ceremony  as  it  actually 
took  place  in  Palestine  or  tiie  neighbouring  countries.  This  extract  from  Hughes' 
Travels  in  Sicily,  Jjc,  (v.  2,  p.  20,)  confirms  the  view  first  given,  in  so  far  as  we  can 
argue  back  from  the  modern  custom  to  the  ancient :  "  We  went  to  view  the  nocturnal 
procession  which  always  accompanies  the  bridegroom  in  escorting  his  betrothed  spouse 
from  the  paternal  roof  to  that  of  her  future  husband.  This  consisted  of  nearly  one 
hundred  of  the  first  persons  in  Joannina,  with  a  great  crowd  of  torch-bearers,  and  a 
band  of  music.  After  having  received  the  lady  they  returned,  but  were  joined  by  an 
equal  number  of  ladies,  who  paid  this  compliment  to  the  bride."  These  "  ladies"  evi- 
dently answer  to  the  virgins  of  our  parable,  and  they  join  the  processsion,  not  till  the 
bridegroom  with  his  friends  have  received  the  bride  at  her  fathers'  house,  and  are  escort- 
ing her  to  her  new  abode. 


194  THE  TEN  VIRGINS. 

riably  at  night,  hence  the  constant  mention  of  lamps  and  torches  carried 
by  the  friends  and  attendants  ;*  therefore  we  are  told  here  that  these 
virgins  "  took  their  lamps."  (Cf.  2  Esdr.  x.  2.)  These,  however,  do 
not  appear  to  have  had  the  same  religious  significance  which  they  had 
in  the  Greek  and  Roman  marriages,f  or  even  in  those  of  the  early  Chris- 
tians ;  but  were  in  use,  partly  as  being  actually  needed,  partly  as  add- 
ing to  the  splendour  of  the  scene.  That  the  virgins  should  be  ten  in 
number  is  not  accidental : — this  number  formed  a  company,  which  a  less 
number,  according  to  the  Jewish  notions,  would  not  have  done4  Of 
course  the  first  question  for  the  interpreter  of  the  parable  will  be,  Who 
are  meant  by  these  virgins  ?  There  are  two  mistakes  to  which  the  word 
has  given  rise.  There  is  first  theirs,  who  thus  argue,  All  are  described 
as  virgins  :  all,  therefore,  belong  at  the  inmost  centre  of  their  life  unto 
Christ.  Some,  it  is  true,  were  found  unready  at  the  last  moment,  and 
therefore  suffered  loss,  (1  Cor.  iii.  13,)  even  a  long  deferring  of  their 
blessedness.  Yet  the  name  with  which  the  Lord  has  honoured  all  gives 
assurance  that  none  were  ultimately  excluded  from  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  and  the  final  salvation.  They  who  take  this  view  of  the  case 
of  the  foolish  virgins,  in  general  connect  it  with  the  doctrine  of  the 
thousand  years'  reign  of  Christ  on  the  earth  and  a  first  resurrection. 
From  the  blessedness  of  these  they  should  be  shut  out  for  the  unreadi- 
ness in  which  they  were  found,  whether  at  the  hour  of  their  death,  or  at 
Christ's  second  coming  ;  they  should  be  thus  shut  out  because  of  their 
imperfections,  and  the  much  that  remained  in  them  unmortified  and  un- 
purified  still,  which  needed  therefore  the  long  and  painful  purging  of 

*  Thus,  Rev.  xviii.  23,  the  ^'Zs  Xi^^vov  and  the  tpuvl]  iivft(piov  Koi  vvii^ri;  are  joined 
together. 

t  Among  the  Greeks  and  Romnns  torches  were  in  chiefest  use.  Thus  Catullus, 
Epitkal.,  98:  Viden' ?  faces  Aureas  quatiunt  comas;  and  again:  Manu  Pineam 
quate  taedam  ;  so  Apuleius,  10 :  Veluti  nuptiales  epuias  obiturae  dominae,  coruseis  faci- 
bus  praelucebant ;  and  Euripides  ;  vvjKptKai  Xafiira&ci.  Cf.  Becker's  Ckarikles,  v.  2,  p. 
465.  Among  the  Jews  lamps  fed  with  oil  were  more  common.  The  early  Christians 
seem  to  have  used  indiscriminately  either,  as  the  expressions,  faculae  nuptiales,  lucernae 
conjugales,  denote.  It  is  only  in  later  Greek,  that  >.af.inii  came  to  signify  not  a  torch 
or  link, — but  as  here  it  would  seem,  a  lamp  fed  wiih  oil,  which  would  at  an  earlier 
time  have  been  expressed  by  X^;^;J'of  or  c\\vx'"oi'-  (See  Passow,  s.  v.  Xu/ittijj.)  Yet 
the  mention  of  oil  would  not  of  itself  exclude  the  possibility  that  these  also  were  torches. 
For  Elphinstone  {Ffist.  of  India,  v.  l,p.  333,)  has  noted,  "The  true  Hindu  way 
of  lighting  up  is  by  torches  held  by  men,  who  feed  the  flame  with  oil  from  a  sort  of 
bottle  [which  would  answer  to  the  dyytioi'  here]  constructed  for  the  purpose." 

t  Thus  it  was  ruled  that  wherever  there  were  ten  Jews  living  in  one  place,  there 
was  a  congregation,  and  there  a  synagogue  ought  to  be  built.  Much  more  on  the 
completeness  of  the  number  ten  may  be  found  collected  by  Vitringa,  De  Synagogd,  p. 
232,  seq.,  and  in  Bahr's  SymhoUk  d.  Mos.  Cultus,  v.  l,p.  175. 


THE  TEN  VIRGINS.  I95 

this  exclusion,  and  of  the  dreadful  persecutions  to  which  all  who  were 
thus  left  out  should  be  exposed.  But  the  root  of  the  matter  being  in 
them,  they  did  not  forfeit  every  thing,  nor  fall  short  of  the  final  bliss  of 
heaven.*  There  might  be  an  argument  in  favour  of  this  view,  drawn 
from  the  circumstance  of  these  foolish  being  styled  virgins  as  well  as 
the  others,  if  others  sometimes  undertook  the  office  of  welcoming  the  bride- 
grootn,  and  yet  the  Lord  had  chosen  to  give  that  appellation  to  these,  and 
to  specify  them  as  virgins.  But  seeing  that  to  such  the  task  in  the  natu- 
ral order  of  things  appertained,  there  is  no  weight  in  the  argument  de- 
rived from  the  title  which  they  bear. 

The  second  error  is  one  of  which  Chrysostom  is  the  chief  champion. 
He,  taking  the  title  "  virgi?is"  in  the  literal,  while  everything  else  is 
taken  in  a  figurative  sense,  limits  the  application  of  the  parable  to  those 
who  had  made  a  profession  of  outward  virginity,"!"  instead  of  seeing  that 

*  Thus  Poiret  (Divin.  OEconom.,  ].  4,  c.  12,  §  18,  v.  2,  p.  276) :  Illi  qui  tempore 
Adventiis  in  statu  quidem  gratiiE  veisabuntur,  at  multis  simul  imperfectionibus,multis- 
que  negligentiis  iniplicati,  quas  hue  usque  nondum  correxerint  nee  abluerint,  hi  inquam 
k  regno  glorioso  Christi  in  terra,  dum  mille  anni  periodi  hujus  effluent,  exclusi,  portam 
sibi  obserari  videbunt.  Itaque  foris  relinquentur  in  tenebris  purgationis,  eorumque  be- 
atitude ad  Resurrectionem  usque  generalem  et  post  annos  mille  regni  Christi  atque 
Sanctorum  differetur.  Hoc  ipsum  satis  aperte  docet  Parabola  Virginum  fatnarum. 
Videmus  enim  eas  ob  negligentiam  suam  a  convivio  nuptiali  fuisse  exclusas,  etiamsi 
et  Virgines  fuerint,  et  lampadem  fidei  habuerint,  et  Dominum  invooaverint.  Janua 
enim  jam  ciausa  nunquam  ilerum  aperiebatur  dum  hoc  tempus  durabat  ;  quoniam  com- 
motio, quae  hoc  in  mundo  futura  est  anlequam  finis  ejus  ac  periodorum  adveniat,  per 
quam  Deus  hoc  in  mundo  et  in  omnibus  quas  ibidem  adsunt,  mutationem  banc  glorio- 
sam  operabitur  (quae  veluti  janua  erit  ac  introductio  in  regnum  ejusdem)  non  nisi  semel 
futura  est.  Adhuc  semel,  inquit,  et  movebo  caelum  et  terram  ;  omnesque  qui  turn  tem- 
poris  per  puritatem  perfectam  ad  gloriam  adipiscendam  idonei  erunt,  impressionibus 
divinae  hujus  motionis  receptis  mutabuntur  :  at  post  hoc  tempus  ad  Resurrectionem 
generalem  usque,  nulla  nova  commotio  aut  mutatio  fiet.  Tunc  enim  aderit  dies  quietis 
naturae  ac  creaturarum  omnium  quae  in  eandem  jam  erunt  introducfae.  Abhinc  vero 
oportebit,  ut  Virgines  fatuas,  et  quicunque  nondum  vcste  nuptiali  fuerint  induti,  iEter- 
nitatem  ipsam  exspectent.  Neque  enim  probabile  videtur  Virginibus  istisnegligentibus, 
in  quibustamen  tot  jam  erant  dispositiones  bonae  pariterque  iis,  qui  eo  tempore  nondum 
rite  parati,  bona  tamen  initia  jam  fecerant,  aeternum  pereundum  esse  :  sed  nee  proba- 
bile est  quamcumque  illi,  post  januam  semel  clausam,  praeparationem  sint  adhibituri, 
Christum  iterum  ex  quiete  sua  exiturum,  et  in  gratiam  eorum  novam  crisin  ac  separa- 
tionem  aliquam  peculiarem  in  natura  instituturum  esse.  Von  Mayer  (Bl&tter  fUr 
hOkere  Wahrheit,v.  7,  p.  247)  interprets  the  parable  in  the  same  manner,  and  Olshau- 
sen. 

+  Augustine  (Serm.  93,  c.  2)  warns  his  hearers  that  the  parable  is  not  to  be  limited 
to  such,  but  belongs  to  all  souls,  quae  habent  Catholicam  fidem,  et  habere  videntur  bona 
opera  in  EcclesiaDei  ;  and  he  quotes  2  Cor.  xi.  2.  In  another  place  he  says,  Virgini- 
tas  cordis,  fides  incorrupta  ; — and  Jerome  (Coinm.  in  Matth.,  in  loc.) :  Virgines  appel- 
lantur,  quia  gloriantur  in  unius  Dei  notitia,  et  mens  eorum  idololatriae  turba  non  con- 


196  THE  TEN  VIRGINS. 

the  virginity  here  is  the  profession  of  a  pure  faith,  the  soul  guiltless  of 
spiritual  fornication,  of  apostacy  from  the  one  God.  For  such  we  are 
to  understand  by  the  virgins  who  go  forth  to  meet  the  bridegroom, — all 
who  profess  to  be  waiting  for  the  Son  of  God  from  heaven,  to  love  his 
appearing,  all  who  with  their  lips  join  in  the  glorious  confession,  "  I  be- 
lieve in  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,  who  shall  come  again  to  judge  both  the 
quick  and  the  dead,"  and  who  do  not  by  their  deeds  openly  deny  that 
hope ;  all  are  included,  who  would  desire  to  include  themselves  in  the 
number  of  his  believing  people.  This  they  have  all  in  common,  that  they 
confess  to  the  same  Lord,  they  profess  to  have  the  same  hope  in  him, — 
even  as  the  virgins  were  alike  in  this,  that  they  all  "  took  their  lamps,  and 
went  forth  to  meet  the  bridegroom.'"  But,  it  is  immediately  added,  "Jive 
of  them  were  wise,  and  jive  of  them  were  foolish  ;"  the  numbers  make 
nothing  to  the  case — only  the  division  is  essential.  They  are  not  dis- 
tinguished into  good  and  bad,  but  as  the  hearers  at  Matt.  vii.  25-27, 
into  "wise"  and  "foolish,"  for  as  a  certain  degree  of  good  will  toward 
the  truth  is  assumed  there  in  the  foolish  from  their  putting  themselves  in 
the  relation  of  hearers,  and  even  attempting  to  build,  so  here  from  their 
going  forth  to  meet  the  bridegroom.  We  have  them  described — the  wise, 
2  Pet.  i.  5-8,  and  the  foolish,  2  Pet.  i.  9. 

The  Lord  proceeds  to  tell  wherein  the  folly  of  these  and  the  wisdom 
of  those  consisted  : — "They  that  were  foolish  took  their  lamps,  hut  took  no 
oil  with  them  ;  hut  the  wise  took  oil  in  their  vessels  with  their  lamps."  It 
is  evident  that  here  is  the  point  on  which  the  interpretation  of  the  para- 
ble turns  ;  the  success  of  an  interpreter  must  depend  on  his  rightly  ex- 
plaining what  the  having,  or  not  having,  a  reserved  supply  of  oil  may 
mean.  Here  again  we  meet  with  a  controversy  between  the  Romanists 
and  the  Reformers,  not  different  from  that  wliich  they  held  concerning 
the  signification  of  the  wedding  garment.  The  latter  asserted  that  what 
these  virgins  lacked  was  the  living  principle  of  faith  ;  what  they  had 
were  the  outer  deeds  of  Christianity,  these  were  their  lamps  shining 


stupratur :  and  again  (Ad.  Jovin.,  1.  2)  :  Decern  virgines  non  totius  generis  humani, 
sed  solicitorum  et  pigrorum  exempla  sunt,  quorum  aiteri  semper  Domini  praestolantur 
adventum,  aiteri  somno  et  inertiae  se  dantes,  futurum  judicium  non  putant.  There  is 
apparently  Chrysostom's  limitation  of  the  parable,  in  the  use  made  of  it  in  a  prayer  for 
the  consecration  of  nuns,  given  by  Mabillon,  {Liiurg.  Gall.,  1.  3,  p.  311,)  where, 
among  other  allusions  to  the  parable,  this  occurs:  Regalem  januam  cum  sapientibus 
Virginibus  licenter  introeant.  Yet  this  may  be  no  more  than  an  adaptation.  Tertul- 
lian  {De  Ani7nd,  c.  18)  mentions  a  singular  use  or  rather  abuse  which  some  of  the 
Gnostics  made  of  this  parable  :  The  five  foolish  virgins  are  the  five  senses,  foolish  inas- 
much as  they  are  easily  deceived,  and  often  give  fallacious  notices  ;  while  the  five  wise 
are  the  reasonable  powers,  which  have  the  capability  of  apprehending  ideas. 


THE  TEN  VIRGINS.  I97 

before  men  : — what  they  wanted  was  the  inner  spirit  of  life,  the  living 
faith  ;  this  was  the  oil  which  they  should  have  had,  if  their  lamps  were 
to  burn  bright  before  Christ  in  the  day  of  his  appearing.*  The  Romanist 
reverses  the  whole,  and  affirms  that  what  they  had  was  faith,  but  then  it 
was  a  failh  which,  not  having  works,  was  "  dead,  being  alone  j"  (Jam. 
ii.  17  j)  they  were  not  careful  to  maintain  good  works,  to  nourish  the 
lamp  of  faith,  which  they  bore  in  sight  of  men,  with  deeds  of  light  done 
for  and  in  the  sight  of  God  ;  they  did  not  by  well-doing  stir  up  the 
grace  of  God  that  was  in  them,  and  so  through  this  sluggishness  and 
sloth  the  grace  which  they  did  not  use  was  taken  from  them ;  their 
lamps  burned  dim,  and  at  last  were  wholly  extinguished,  and  they  had 
not  wherewith  to  revive  them  anew.f  It  is  needless  to  observe  in  what 
different  senses  the  two  parties  use  the  word  faith, — the  Romanist  as  the 
outward  profession  of  the  truth — the  Reformers  as  the  root  and  livinor 
principle  of  Christian  life.:}:  If  it  were  not  for  those  opposite  uses  of  the 
same  term,  the  two  interpretations  would  not  be  opposed  to,  or  exclude,  one 
another, — certainly  would  not  be  incapable  of  a  fair  reconciliation. §  For 
we  may  equally  contemplate  the  foolish  virgins  who  were  unprovided 
with  oil,  as  those  going  through  a  round  of  external  duties,  without  life, 
without  love,  without  any  striving  after  inward  conformity  to  the  law  of 


*  This  is  very  much  Augustine's  Interpretation  (Ep.  140,  c.  33  ;  Serm.  149,  c.  11) ; 
Lampades  bona  sunt  opera  .  .  .  et  ipsa  quae  etiam  coram  hominibus  lucet  laudabilis 
conversatio  ;  sed  magni  interest  qua  mentis  intentione  fiat  .  .  .  Quid  est  ergo  ferre 
oleum  secum,  nisi  habere  conscientiam  placendi  Deo  de  bonis  operibus,  et  non  ibi  finem 
gaudii  sui  ponere,  si  homines  laudent.  Cocceius  explains  the  oil  in  the  vessels  thus, 
Doctrina  Spiritifis  Sancti  fidem  pascens  in  perpetuum  ut  non  deficiat  :  and  Cajetan,  a 
Romanist  expositor,  consents  to  this  interpretation  ;  his  words  are  so  excellent  that  I 
will  quote  them  :  In  hoc  diflerunt  operantes  bona  opera,  quod  aliqui  habent  testimoni- 
um suae  bonitatis  foris  tantum  in  ipsis  operibus  bonis:  intus  enim  non  sentiunt  se  dili- 
gere  Deura  in  toto  corde,  se  pcBnitere  peccatorum  quia  sunt  ofTensae  Dei,  se  diligere 
proximum  propter  Deum.  Alii  autem  operantur  sic  bona,  ut  et  ipsa  opera  lucentia 
testimonium  foris  reddant  boni  animi,  et  intus  in  conscientia  propria  ipse  Spiritus 
Sanctus  testificetur  spiritui  eorum  quod  filii  Dei  sunt.  Sentiunt  enim  in  corde  toto  se 
diligere  Deum,  pcenitere  propter  Deum,  diligere  proximum  et  seipsum  propter  Deum, 
et  breviter  Deum  esse  sibi  rationem  amandi,  sperandi,  timendi,  gaudendi,  tristandi  et 
breviter  operandi  intus  et  extra  :  hoc  est  enim  oleum  in  vasis  propriis. 

t  This  view  too  has  its  supporters  among  the  Fathers  :  thus  Jerome  (in  joc.)  : 
Non  habent  oleum,  quae  videntur  simiii  quidem  fide  Dominum  confiteri,  sed  virtutum 
opera  negligunt.     Cf.  Origen,  in  Matth.,  Tract.  32. 

X  As  Augustine,  when  he  says  :  Animae  tuae  anima  fides. 

§  For  instance, who  would  refuse  to  accede  to  the  explanation  given  by  Gerhard? 
Per  lampades  accensas  externa  oris  professio  et  exterior  pietatis  species  :  per  oleum  ver6 
in  vasis  interior  cordis  juslitia,  vera  fides,  sincera  charitas,  vigilantia,  prudentia,  quae 
solius  Dei,  non  autem  hominum  oculis  obvia,  inteliiguntur. 


198  THE  TEN  VIRGINS. 

God,  to  whom  religion  is  all  husk  and  no  kernel ;  or  again,  we  may  con- 
template  them  as  those  who,  confessing  Christ  with  their  lips,  and  hold- 
ing  fast  the  form  of  the  truth,  yet  are  not  diligent  in  the  work  of  the 
Lord,  in  acts  of  charity,  of  humility,  and  self-denial ;  and  who  therefore 
by  that  law  which  decrees  that  from  him  who  hath  not  shall  be  taken 
even  that  which  he  hath,  do  gradually  lose  that  grace  which  they  had> 
and  find  that  they  have  lost  it  altogether,  at  the  decisive  moment  when 
it  were  need  that  they  should  have  it  in  largest  measure.  It  is  clear 
that  whatever  is  merely  outward  in  the  Christian  profession  is  the  lamp 
— whatever  is  inward  and  spiritual  is  the  oiljajd^up,  in  the  vessels. 
When  we  contemplate  with  St.  James  the  faith  as  the  body,  and  the 
works  as  that  which  witnesses  for  an  informing  vivifying  soul,  then  the 
faith  is  the  lamp,  the  works  the  oil  in  the  vessels ; — but  when  on  the 
other  hand  we  contemplate  with  St.  Paul  the  works  as  only  having  a 
value  from  the  living  principle  of  faith  out  of  which  they  spring,  then 
the  works  are  the  lamp,  and  the  faith  the  oil  which  must  feed  it.  Yet 
in  either  case,  before  we  have  fully  exhausted  the  meaning  of  the  oil, 
we  must  get  beyond  both  the  works  and  the  faith  to  something  higher 
than  either,  the  informing  Spirit  of  God  which  prompts  the  works  and 
quickens  the  faith,  and  of  which  Spirit  oil  is  ever  in  Scripture  the 
standing  symbol.  (Exod.  xxx.  22-33 ;  Zech.  iv.  2,  12 ;  Acts  x.  38  ; 
Heb.  i.  9.) 

But  under  whatever  aspect  we  regard  the  relation  between  the  oil 
in  the  lamps  and  in  the  vessels,  the  purpose  of  the  parable  is,  as  we 
learn  from  the  Lord's  concluding  words,  to  impress  upon  the  members 
of  his  Church  their  need  of  vigilance.  Regarded  in  the  one  view,  it  is  a 
warning  that  they  be  careful  to  maintain  good  works, — that  they  be  not 
weary  of  well  doing, — that  they  be  not  of  the  number  of  those  who  are 
satisfied  with  saying.  Lord,  Lord,  while  they  do  not  the  things  that  he 
says.  Regarded  under  the  other  aspect,  it  is  a  warning  that  they  be 
watchful  over  their  inward  state, — over  their  affections, — over  all  which, 
withdrawn  from  the  eyes  of  man,  is  seen  only  of  God  ; — that  they  seek 
to  be  glorious  within,  to  have  a  continual  supply  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ 
Jesus  in  their  innermost  hearts,  to  approve  themselves  before  God,*  as 

•  This  is  a  point  which  is  brought  out  with  great  frequency  and  urgency,  by  the  old 
expositors,  by  Augustine,  Ep.  140,  c.  31,  and  again,  Serm.  93,  c.  8 ;  by  Gregory  the 
Great,  Horn.  12  in  Evang. :  and  with  much  beauty  by  the  author  of  a  sermon  found 
among  the  works  of  St.  Bernard  (v.  2,  p.  722) :  Oleum  in  larnpade  est  opus  bonum  in 
maniffstatione,  sed  duni  videtur  k  proximis  caritas  operis,  dum  miranturet  laudant,  ex- 
tollitur  plerumque  el  adsurgit  clatus  animus  operantis,  et  dum  in  se  et  non  in  Domino 
gloriatur,  lumen  lampadis  adnullatur,  et  carens  fomento  congruo  lampas,  quae  coram 
hominibus  clarfe  lucet,  coram  Domino  tenebratur.     Prudentes  ver6  virgines  prteter 


THE  TEN  VIRGINS.  I99 

well  as  to  show  a  fair  and  unblamable  conversation  before  the  world. 
In  either  case,  we  must  remember,  and  it  adds  much  to  the  solemnity  of 
the  lesson,  that  by  the  foolish  virgins  are  meant, — not  hypocrites,  not 
self-conscious  dissemblers,  much  less  the  openly  profane  and  ungodly, 
but  the  negligent  in  prayer,  the  slothful  in  work,  and  all  those,  whose 
scheme  for  a  Christian  life  is  laid  out  to  satisfy  the  eyes  of  men,  and  not 
to  please  God  who  seeth  in  secret.  Nor  is  it  that  they  have  actually  no 
oil  at  all ;  they  have  some,  but  not  enough  ;  their  lamps,  when  they 
first  go  forth,  are  evidently  burning,  else  they  could  not  speak  of  them 
as  on  the  point  of  expiring  just  as  the  bridegroom  was  approaching.  In 
fact,  the  having  no  oil  provided  in  the  vessels  is  exactly  parallel  to  the 
having  no  deepness  of  earth  ;  (Matt.  xiii.  5  ;)  the  seed  springs  up  till 
the  sun  scorches  it, — the  lamps  burn  on  till  their  oil  is  exhausted  tlu'ough 
the  length  of  the  bridegroom's  delay.  In  each  case  there  is  something 
more  than  a  merely  external  profession,  conscious  to  itself  that  it  is  no- 
thing besides ; — it  is  not  that  there  was  no  faith,  but  rather  that  there 
was  only  that  _^cZe5  temporaria  which  could  not  endure  temptation  nor 
survive  delay, — the  Christian  life  in  manifestation,  but  not  fed  from 
deep  internal  fountains.  But  they  are  like  the  wise  virgins,  who  recog- 
nize the  possibility  that  the  bridegroom  may  tarry  long,  that  the  Church 
may  not  very  soon,  perhaps  not  in  their  days,  enter  into  its  glory  ; — 
who,  therefore,  foresee  that  they  may  have  a  long  life  to  live  of  toil  and 
self-denial,  before  they  shall  be  called  to  cease  from  their  labours,  be- 
fore the  kingdom  shall  come  unto  them  • — and  who  consequently  feel 
that  it  is  not  a  few  warm  excited  feelings  which  will  carry  them  suc- 
cessfully through  all  this, — which  will  enable  them  to  endure  unto  the 
end  ;  for  such  are  but  as  a  fire  among  straw,  which  will  quickly  blaze 
up  and  as  quickly  be  extinguished.  They  feel  that  principles  as  well 
as  feelings  must  be  engaged  in  the  work, — that  their  first  good  impulses 
and  desires  will  carry  them  but  a  very  little  way,  unless  they  be  re- 
vived, strengthened,  and  purified,  by  a  continual  supply  of  the  Spirit  of 


oleum  quod  in  lampadibus  habent,  oleum  aliud  in  vasis  reponunt:  quia  niniirum  sanctae 
animse  dum  sponsi  sui  prEDStolaiitur  adventum,  dum  toto  desiderio  ei  clamant  quotidie. 
Adveniat  regnum  tuum,  praeter  ilia  opera  quae  proximia  lucent  ad  Dei  gloriam  et  videntur, 

aliqua  in  occulto,  ubi  solus  Pater  videt,  opera  faciunt Haec  est  gloria  filiac  regis 

ab  intus,  dum  plus  de  oleo  quod  in  vasis  conscientiae  dilucescit,  quim  de  eo  quod  lucet 
de  foris  gloriatur;  periisse  aestimat  omne  quod  cernitur,  nee  id  dignum  judicat  remune- 
ratione,  quod  favores  hominum  prosequuntur.  Latenter  igitur  quae  prajvalet,  operatur, 
petit  secretum,  orationibus  pulsat  ccelum,  fundit  lacrymas  testes  amoris,  .  .  .  haec  est 
gloria,  sed  ab  intus,  sed  invisa,  filiae  regis  et  amicae.  Hoc  oleum  fatuae  virgines  non 
habent,  quia  nisi  ad  nitorem  vanae  gloria)  et  favorem  hominum  bona  non  operantur. 
Hoc  oleum  in  quo  prudentes  confidunt,in  abditis  conscientiarum  vasculis  reponunt. 


200  THE  TEN  VIRGINS. 

God.  If  the  bridegroom  were  to  come  at  once,  perhaps  it  might  be  an- 
other thing,  but  their  wisdom  is  that,  since  it  may  possibly  be  otherwise, 
they  see  their  need  of  malting  provision  against  the  contingency. 

When  it  is  said  in  the  parable  that  the  bridegroom  did  actually  tar- 
ry, we  may  number  this  among  the  many  hints,  which  were  given  by 
our  Lord,  that  it  was  possible  the  time  of  his  return  might  be  delayed 
beyond  the  expectation  of  his  first  disciples.  It  was  a  hint  and  no  more  ;  if 
more  had  been  given,  if  the  Lord  had  said  plainly  that  he  would  not 
come  for  many  centuries,  then  the  first  ages  of  the  Church  would  have 
been  placed  in  a  disadvantageous  position,  being  deprived  of  that  power- 
ful motive  to  holiness  and  diligence  supplied  to  each  generation  of  the 
faithful,  by  the  possibility  of  the  Lord's  return  in  their  time.  It  is  not 
that  he  desires  each  succeeding  generation  to  believe  that  he  will  cer- 
tainly return  in  their  time,  for  he  does  not  desire  our  faith  and  our  prac- 
tice to  be  founded  on  an  error,  as,  in  that  case,  the  faith  and  practice  of 
all  generations  except  the  last  would  be.  But  it  is  a  necessary  element 
of  the  doctrine  concerning  the  second  coming  of  Christ,  that  it  should 
be  possible  at  any  time,  that  no  generation  should  consider  it  improba- 
ble in  theirs.*  The  love,  the  earnest  longing  of  those  first  Christians 
made  them  to  assume  that  coming  to  be  close  at  hand.  In  the  strength 
and  joy  of  this  faith  they  lived  and  suffered,  and  when  they  died,  the 
kingdom  was  indeed  come  unto  thern.f  But  in  addition  to  the  reason 
here  noted,  why  the  Church  should  not  have  been  acquainted  with 
the  precise  time  of  her  Lord's  return,  it  may  be  added,  that  it  was  in 
itself,  no  doubt,  undetermined.  Prophecy  is  no  fatalism,:}:  and  it  was  al- 
ways open  to  every  age  by  faith  and  prayer  to  bring  about,  or  at  least 
to  hasten  that  coming,  so  that  the  apostle  speaks  of  the  faithful  not  mere- 
ly as  looking  for,  but  also  hasting,  the  coming  of  the  day  of  God ;  (2 
Pet.  iii.  12 ;)  and  compare  Acts  iii.  19,  "  Repent  ye  ...  .  that  the 
times  of  refreshing  may  come  ;"  these  "  times  of  refreshing"  being  evi- 
dently identical  with  "the  times  of  restitution  of  all  things,"  (ver.  21,) 
the  glorious  setting  up  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ ;  and  we  find  the  same 


*  Augustine:  Latet  ultimus  dies,  ut  observetur  omnis  dies;  and  Tertullian  (De 
Ariima,  c.  33)  gives  the  reason  why  the  Father  has  reserved  to  himself  the  knowledge 
of  that  day :  Ut  pendula,  expectatione  solicitudo  fidei  probetur,  semper  diem  observans, 
dum  semper  ignorat,  quotidie  timens,  quod  quotidie  sperat. 

t  Yet  Augustine,  claiming  a  right  to  dissent  from  a  scheme  of  prophetic  interpre- 
tation current  in  his  day,  which  made  the  end  of  the  world  to  be  already  instant,  says 
very  beautifully  {Ep.  199,  c.  5)  :  Non  ergo  ille  diligit  Adventum  Domini,  qui  ilium  as- 
serit  propinquare,  aut  ille  qui  asserit  non  propinquare  ;  sed  ille  potiusquieumsive  prop6 
sive  longfe  sit,  sinceritate  fidei,  firmitate  spei,  ardore  caritalis  expectat. 

t  In  Augustine's  words,  Praedixi,  non  fixi. 


THE  TEN  VIRGINS.  201 

truth,  that  the  quicker  or  tardier  approach  of  that  time  is  conditional, 
elsewhere  declared  in  clearest  terms.  (2  Pet.  iii.  9.)  In  agreement 
with  these  passages,  we  pray  that  it  may  please  God  "  to  accomplish 
the  number  of  his  elect,  and  to  hasten  his  kingdom."  But  while  the 
matter  was  left  by  the  wisdom  of  God  in  this  uncertainty,  it  was  yet  im- 
portant that  after  the  expectations  of  the  first  ages  of  the  Church  had 
proved  to  be  ungrounded,  those  who  examined  the  Scriptures  should 
•find  intimations  there  that  this  might  probably  be  the  case.*  Of  these 
intimations  there  are  many,  and  this  present  passage  is  one. 

But  to  return;  the  bridegroom  tarrying,  the  virgins  "  all  slumbered 
and  slept."  The  steps  by  which  they  fell  into  deep  sleep  are  here  mark- 
ed, first  they  nodded  the  head  or  slumbered,  and  next  they  slept  pro- 
foundly. Some  have  understood  by  this  sleeping  of  all,  a  certain  unreadi- 
ness that  will  be  found  in  the  whole  Church, — a  certain  acquiescence  in  the 
present  time  and  in  the  present  things,  even  among  the  faithful  them- 
selves, though  with  this  difference,  that  their  unreadiness  will  be  remedia- 
ble, and  easily  removed  ;  its  removal  being  actually  signified  by  the  trim- 
ming and  replenishing  of  their  lamps,  while  that  of  the  others  will  be 
beyond  remedy .f  Augustine  ij:  proposes,  but  it  is  only  to  reject,  this  in- 
terpretation, that  by  the  sleeping  of  all  is  signified  the  love  of  all  in 
some  measure  growing  cold  ;  for  he  asks,  Why  were  these  wise  admit- 
ted unless  for  the  very  reason  that  their  love  had  not  grown  cold  ? 
But  there  is,  he  says,  a  sleep  common  to  all,  the  sleep  of  death,  which 
by  these  words  is  indicated  :  and  this  is  the  explanation  of  Chrysostom, 
Theophylact,  Jerome,  Gregory  the  Great,  and  nearly  all  the  ancient  in- 
terpreters. It  seems,  indeed,  far  preferable  to  that  other  which  under- 
stands by  this  slumbering  and  sleeping  the  negligences  and  omissions 
of  even  the  best  Christians,  for  it  is  is  scarcely  probable  that  our  Lord 
would  have,  as  it  were,  given  this  allowance  for  a  certain  degree  of 
negligence,  seeing  that  with  all  the  most  earnest  provocations  to  dili- 
gence, we  are  ever  inclined  to  indulge  in  spiritual  sloth.  It  is  most  im- 
probable of  all  that  he  should  have  done  so  in  a  parable  of  which  the 
very  aim  and  moral  is  that  we  be  always  ready, — that  we  be  7iot  taken 

*  Augustine  (Ep.  199,  c.  5):  Ne  forte  ciini  transisset  tempus,  quo  eum  crediderant 
esse  venturum,  et  venisse  non  cernerent,  etiam  caetera  fallaciter  sibi  promitti  arbitran- 
tes,  et  de  ipsa,  mercede  fidei  desperarent. 

t  So  Cocceius :  Significat  securitatem,  quae  Ecclesiam  Christianam  post  primam 
quasi  vigiliam  noctis  persecutionum  cum  pace  invasit ;  and  Grotius,  in  this  view  fol- 
lowing the  Auct.  Oper.  Imperf.,  quotes  in  confirmation  Jam.  iii.  2 ;  Rom.  xiii.  2. 
Maldonatus  gives  this  explanation  in  a  form  somewhat  modified,  and  popular  at  the 
present  day  :  Dormire  interpretor  desinere  de  adventu  Domini  cogitare. 

X  Serm.  93,  c.  5  ;  Ep.  140,  c.  32. 

14 


202  THE  TEN  VIRGINS. 

unprepared.  But  perhaps  by  this  slumbering  and  sleeping  more  may 
not  be  meant  than  that  all,  having  taken  such  measures  as  they  count- 
ed needful  to  enable  them  to  meet  the  bridegroom  as  they  would  wish, 
calmly  and  securely  awaited  his  approach.*  Moreover,  the  conveni- 
ences of  the  parabolic  narration  which  required  to  be  consulted  seem  to 
require  such  a  circumstance  as  this.  For  had  the  foolish  virgins  been 
in  a  condition  to  mark  the  lapse  of  time,  and  the  gradual  warning  of 
their  lamps,  they, — knowing  that  they  had  not  wherewith  to  replenish 
them, — would  naturally  have  bestirred  themselves  before  the  decisive 
moment  arrived,  to  procure  a  new  supply.  The  fact  that  they  fell 
asleep  and  were  not  awakened  except  by  the  cry  of  the  advancing  bridal 
company  gives, — and  scarcely  anything  else  would  give, — an  easy  and 
natural  explanation  of  their  utter  and  irremediable  destitution  of  oil  at  the 
moment  when  there  was  most  need  that  they  should  have  it  in  abun- 
dance. And  had  the  wise  virgins  not  slept  as  well, — had  they  been 
represented  as  watching  while  the  others  were  sleeping,  it  would  have 
seemed  like  a  lack  of  love  upon  their  parts,  not  to  have  warned  their  com- 
panions of  the  lapse  of  time  and  the  increasing  dimness  with  which  their 
lamps  were  burning,  while  yet  help  was  possible. f 

It  was  at  midnight,  and  not  till  then,  that  "there  loas  a  crymade,  Be- 
hold the  hridegroom  cometh  ;  go  ye  out  to  meet  him  ;" — this  cry  we  may 
suppose  to  have  been  made  either  by  a  part  of  the  retinue  running  before, 
or  by  the  applauding  multitude,  who,  even  till  that  late  hour,  had  been  wait- 
ing to  see  the  passage  of  the  procession  through  the  streets,  and  thus 
testified  their  lively  sympathy  in  what  was  going  forward.  But  the 
spirituarsignification  of  the  cry  at  midnight  has  been  variously  given. 
Most  are  agreed  to  find  an  allusion  to  "  the  voice  of  the  archangel  and 
the  trump  of  God,"  (1  Thess.  iv.  16,)  which  shall  be  heard  when  the 
Lord  shall  descend  from  heaven  with  a  shout.  Some,  however,  explain 
the  cry  as  coming  from  watchers  in  the  Church,  such  as  shall  not  be  al- 
together lacking  in  the  last  times, — by  whom  the  signs  of  the  times  have 
been  observed,  and  who  will  proclaim  aloud  the  near  advent  of  the  Lord, 
the  heavenly  Bridegroom,  when  he  draws  nigh,  accompanied  by  the  angels 
the  friends  of  the  bridegroom,  and  leading  home  his  bride,  the  triumphant 
Church,  and  looking  to  be  met  and  greeted  by  the  members  of  his  Church 
yet  militant  on  earth,  themselves  a  part  of  that  mystical  bride,:}:  that 

*  Hilary  ( Comm.  in  31atth.,c.  27,)  unites  this  meaning  and  the  preceding :  Exspec" 
tantium  somnus  credentium  quies  est,  et  in  pcEnitentise  tempore  mors  temporalis  univer- 
Borum. 

t  Storr,  De  Far.  Christi,  in  his  Opusc.  Acad.,  v.  1,  p.  133. 

I  Augustine  {Quasi.  Ixxxiii.  qu.  59)  :  Ex  ipsis  virginibus  constat  ea  quae  dicitur 
sponsa,  tanquam  si  omnibus  Christianis  in  Ecclesiam  concurrenlibus  filii  ad  matrem 


*  THE  TEN  VIRGINS.  203 

so  he  may  bring  her  to  the  glorious  mansion — the  house  of  everlasting 
joy  and  gladness  which  he  has  prepared  for  her.  And  this  cry  is  "  at 
midnight :"  it  was  an  opinion  current  among  the  later  Jews,  that  the 
Messiah  would  come  suddenly  at  midnight,  as  their  forefathers  had  gone 
out  from  Egypt  and  obtained  their  former  deliverance,  at  that  very  hour, 
(Exod.  xii.  29,)  from  which  belief  Jerome*  supposes  the  apostolic  tradi- 
tion of  not  dismissing  the  people  on  Easter  eve,  till  the  middle  night 
was  past,  to  have  been  derived.  They  waited  till  then,  that  they  might 
be  assembled  if  Christ  should  come,  who  was  twice  to  glorify  that  night, 
first,  by  in  it  resuming  his  life,  and  again,  by  assuming  in  it  the  do- 
minion of  the  world  :  and  not  a  few  have  found  in  the  passage  before 
us  an  argument  for  supposing  that  the  Lord's  coming  would  actually  take 
pace  at  the  middle  night.  But  it  is  more  natural  to  suppose  that  mid- 
night is  here  named,  simply  because  that  is  the  time  when  commonly 
deep  sleep  falls  upon  men, — when  such  an  occurrence  as  that  in  the 
parable  would  be  least  looked  for,  accounted  least  likely  to  happen  j 
and  because  thus  the  unexpectedness  of  Christ's  coming,  of  the  day 
of  the  Lord  which  "  cometh  as  a  thief  in  the  night,"  (1  Thess.  v.  2,)  is 
in  a  lively  manner  set  out.f 

But  when  the  cry  was  heard,  '•'  then  all  those  virgins  arose,  and  trim- 
med their  lamps.^j^  Every  one  at  the  last  prepares  to  give  an  account 
of  his  works,  inquires  into  the  solidity  of  the  grounds  of  his  faith, §  seri- 
ously searches  whether  his  life  has  been  one  which  will  have  praise  not 
merely  of  men,  for  that  he  now  feels  will  avail  nothing,  but  also  of  God. 
Many  put  off  this  examination  of  the  very  grounds  of  their  faith  and 
hope  to  the  last  moment — nay,  some  manage  to  defer  it,  and  the  misera- 
ble discoveries  which  will  then  be  made,  beyond  the  grave,  even  till 
the  day  of  judgment, — but  further  it  cannot  be  deferred.     When  the 

concurrere  dicantur,  cum  ex  ipsis  filiis  congregatis  constet  ea  quae  dicitur  mater.  (See 
Rev.  xix.  7,9.) 

*  Comm.  in  Matth.,  in  loc. 

+  Augustine  (Serm.  93,  c.  6) :  Quid  est  media,  nocte?  Quando  non  speratur, 
quando  omnino  non  creditur  ; — and  Jerome  :  Subito  enim,  quasi  intempestii  nocte,  et 
securis  omnibus  Christi  resonabit  adventus. 

t  Ward  ( View  of  the  Hindoos,  v.  2,  p.  29),  describing  the  parts  of  a  marriage  cere- 
mony in  India  of  which  he  was  an  eye-witness,  says :  "  After  waiting  two  or  three 
hours,  at  length  near  midnight  it  was  announced  as  in  the  very  words  of  Scripture, 
'Behold, the  bridegroom  cometh  ;  go  ye  out  to  meet  him.'  All  the  persons  employed 
now  lighted  their  lamps,  and  ran  with  them  in  their  hands  to  fill  up  their  stations  in  the 
procession — some  of  them  had  lost  their  lights  and  recre  unprepared,  hut  it  teas  then 
too  late  to  seek  them ;  and  the  cavalcade  moved  forward." 

§  Augustine  ;  Rationem  praeparant  reddere  de  operibus  suis.  Cocceius :  Quivia 
homoapud  sefidei  suae  soliditatem  requisivit. 


204  THE  TEN  VIRGINS. 

day  of  Christ  comes,  it  will  be  impossible  for  any  to  remain  ignorant 
any  longer  of  his  true  state,  for  that  day  will  be  a  revelation  of  the  hid- 
den things  of  men,  of  things  which  had  remained  hidden  even  from  them 
selves  ; — a  flood  of  light  will  then  pour  into  all  the  darkest  corners  of  all 
hearts,  and  show  every  man  to  himself  exactly  as  he  is,— so  that  self-decep- 
tion will  be  no  longer  possible.  Thus  when  the  foolish  virgins  arose  to 
trim  their  lamps,  they  discovered  to  their  dismay  that  their  lamps  were  on 
the  point  of  expiring  for  lack  of  nourishment — and  that  they  had  not 
wherewith  to  replenish  them : — so  that  they  were  compelled  in  their 
need  to  turn  to  their  wiser  companions,  saying,  "  Give  us  of  your  oil, 
for  our  lamps  are  gone  out.''*  Of  course  the  request  and  the  refusal 
which  it  calls  out, — like  the  discourse  between  Abraham  and  Dives, — 
are  only  the  clothing  and  outer  garb  of  the  truth — but  of  truth  how  im- 
portant ! — no  other  indeed  than  this,  that  we  shall  look  in  vain  from  men 
for  that  grace  which  God  only  can  supply,  that  we  shall  be  miserably 
disappointed,  if  we  think  thus  to  borrow  in  an  easy  lazy  way,  that 
which  must  be  bought, — won,  that  is,  by  earnest  prayer  and  diligent  en- 
deavour. 

"  But  the  wise  answered,  saying,  Not  so  jf  lest  there  he  not  enough 
for  us  and  you.''     Every  man  must  live  by  his  own  faith.     There  is 
that  which  one  can  communicate  to  another,  and  make  himself  the  rich- 
er— as  one  who  gives  another  light,  has  not  therefore  less  light,  but 
walks  henceforth  in  the  light  of  two  torches  instead  of  one  ;  but  there 

*  The  hand-lamp  was  naturally  small,  and  would  not  contain  a  supply  of  oil  for 
very  many  hours  of  continuous  burning :  even  the  lamps  used  at  a  festival,  which  would 
be  larger,  needed  to  be  replenished,  if  kept  burning  long  into  the  night.  Thus  Petro- 
nius,  22 :  Tricliniarchus  experrectus  lucernls  occidentibus  oleum  infuderat ;  see  also  c. 
70.  Such  lucernae  occidentes  are  the  lamps  here,  lamps  failing  and  "going  out,"  as  it 
is  in  the  margin  of  our  Bibles,  not  already  "  gone  out,"  for  in  that  case  they  would  not 
merely  have  needed  to  trim  and  feed  them,  but  must  have  asked  from  their  companions 
also  permission  to  kindle  them  anew,  of  which  yet  we  hear  nothing.  The  trimming 
itself  implied  two  things,  the  infusion  of  fresh  oil,  and  the  removing  whatever  had  gath- 
ered round,  and  was  clogging  the  wick.  For  the  last  purpose  there  was  often  a  little 
instrument  that  hung  by  a  slender  chain  from  the  lamp  itself — pointed  for  the  removing 
of  the  snuffs  (the  putres  fungi)  from  around  the  flame,  and  furnished  with  a  little  hook 
at  the  side  by  which  the  wick,  when  need  was,  might  be  drawn  further  out.  This  in- 
strument is  sometimes  found  still  attached  to  the  bronze  lamps  discovered  in  sepulchres. 
In  Virgil's  Moretum,  11 :  Et  producit  acu  stupas  humore  carentes.  (See  Becker's 
Callus,  V.  2,  p.  205,  seq.) 

t  The  answer  in  the  Greek  is  strongly  elliptical  as  in  a  moment  of  earnestness  and 
haste.  Bengel:  Abrupta  oratio,  festinationi  illi  conveniens.  On  the  spirit  of  the  an- 
swer of  the  wise  virgins  as  regards  themselves,  Augustine  remarks  :  Non  desperatione 
dictum  est,  sed  sobrii  et  pift.  humilitate  ;  and  Chrysostom  {De  Fmnit.,  Horn.  3) :  Ov 
Si'  d(rTr\ayy(viav  tovto  Troiovuai,  dXXu  Sia  rd  otcvov  tov  xatpov. 


THE  TEN  VIRGINS.  205 

is  also  that  which  being  divine  is  in  its  very  nature  incommunicable 
from  man  to  man,  which  can  be  obtained  only  from  above,  and  which 
every  man  must  obtain  for  himself; — one  can  indeed  point  out  to  another 
where  he  is  to  dig  for  the  precious  ore,  but  after  all  is  said,  each  one 
must  bring  it  up  for  himself  and  by  his  own  efforts.  The  wise  virgins 
did  all  they  could  for  their  unfortunate  companions,  gave  them  the  best 
counsel  that  under  the  circumstances  was  possible,  Avhen  they  said, 
"  Go  ye  rather  to  them  that  sell,  and  buy  for  yourselves  ;"  turn  to  the 
dispensers  of  heavenly  grace,  to  them  whom  God  has  appointed  in  the 
Church  as  channels  of  his  gifts,  or  as  some  would  explain  it,  to  the  pro- 
phets and  apostles,  and  learn  from  their  words  and  teaching,  how  to  re- 
vive the  work  of  God  in  your  souls,  if  yet  there  be  time.  Sometimes 
the  words  have  been  understood  as  ironically  spoken  ;*  but  how  much 
more  pleasing,  how  much  more  consistent  with  their  character  whom 
the  wise  virgins  represent,  to  see  in  them  a  counsel  of  love,  of  that  love 
which  emphatically  "  hopeth  all  things," — an  exhortation  to  their  com- 
panions that  they  trust  not  in  man,  but  betake  themselves,  if  it  yet  be 
time,  to  the  sources  from  which  true  effectual  grace  can  alone  be  obtain- 
ed, that  they  seek  yet  to  revive  the  work  of  grace  in  their  hearts. — Nor 
can  we  refuse  to  see  in  the  reason  which  they  give  for  refusing  to  com- 
ply  with  the  others'  request,  namely,  lest  there  he  not  enough  for  us  and 
you,"  an  argument  against  works  of  supererogation,  however  the  Rom- 
ish  expositors  may  resist  the  drawing  of  any  such  conclusion  from  the 
words.  "  The  righteous  shall  hardly  be  saved  ;"f — the  wise  virgins 
did  not  feel  that  they  had  anything  over, — aught  which,  as  not  needing 
for  themselves,  they  could  impart  to  others.  All  which  they  hoped  to 
attain  was,  that  their  own  lamps  might  burn  bright  enough  to  allow 
them  to  make  part  of  the  bridal  company,  to  enter  with  those  that  enter- 
ed into  the  joy  of  the  festal  chamber.:}: 

*  Augustine  (Serm.  93,  c.  8) :  Non  consulentium  sed  irridentium  est  ista  respon- 
sio ;  and  Luther  quotes,  Justi  ridebunt  in  interitu  impiorum. 

t  Augustine  (Ep.  140,  c.  34) :  Petunt  a  sapientibus  oleum,  nee  inveniunt,  nee 
accipiunt,  illis  respondentibus  se  nescire,  utriim  vel  sibi  sufficiat  ipsa  conscientia, 
qua  exspectant  misericordiam  sub  illo  Judice,  qui  ciim  in  throne  sederit,  quis  gloria- 
bitur  castum  se  habere  cor,  aut  quis  gloriabitur  mundum  se  esse  a  peccato,  nisi  super- 
exultet  misericordia  judiciol 

t  Tertullian  {De  Pudic,  c.  22)  makes  good  application  of  this  part  of  the  para- 
ble, when  he  is  opposing  the  iibelli  pacis  which  the  confessors  in  the  African  Church 
gave  to  the  lapsed  :  Sufficiat  martyri  propria  delicta  purg&sse.  Ingrati  aut  superbi 
est  in  alios  quoque  spargere,  quod  pro  magno  fuerit  consecutus.  Quis  alienam  mor- 
tem sua  solvit  nisi  solus  Dei  filius  ?....  Proinde  qui  ilium  aemularis  donando  delicta,  si 
nihil  ipse  deliquisti,  plane  patere  pro  me.  Si  vero  peccator  es,  quomodo  oleum  faculae 
tuae  sufficere  et  tibi  et  mihi  poterit  ?— Gurtler  {Syst.  Theol.  Froph.,^.  711)  gives  a 


206  THE  TEN  VIRGINS. 

So  much  was  granted  them  : — while  the  others  were  absent,  seeking 
to  repair  their  past  neglect,  "  the  bridegroom  came,  and  they  thai  were  rea- 
dy,"*  they  whose  lamps  were  burning,  having  been  fed  anew  from  their 
vessels,  ^'went  in  with  him  to  the  marriage,^  and  the  door  was  shut  ;" 
shut  as  much  for  the  security  and  joy  without  interruption  of  those 
within,  as  for  the  lasting  exclusion  of  those  without.  (See  Gen.  vii.  16  ; 
Rev.  iii.  12.)  "What  door?"  exclaims  the  author  of  an  ancient 
homily  on  this  parable,:}:  "  That  which  now  is  open  to  them  coming  from 
the  east  and  from  the  west,  that  they  may  sit  down  with  Abraham,  and 
Isaac,  and  Jacob,  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven, — that  Door  which  saith, 
Him  that  cometh  to  me  I  will  in  no  wise  cast  out.  Behold  how  it  is 
now  open,  which  shall  then  be  closed  for  evermore.  Murderers  come, 
and  they  are  admitted, — publicans  and  harlots  come,  and  they  are  re- 
ceived,— unclean  and  adulterers  and  robbers,  and  whosoever  is  of  this 


strange  story  from  Melchior  Adamus,  which  witnesses  how  strongly  it  was  once  felt 
that  there  was  here  an  argument  against  all  hoping  in  man  and  in  the  merits  of  men 
rather  than  in  God.  The  words  are  these  :  "  There  was  a.  d.  1322,  exhibited  at 
Eisenach  before  the  Margrave  Frederick  of  Misnia,  the  mystery  concerning  the  five 
wise  and  as  many  foolish  virgins.  The  wise  were  St.  Mary,  St.  Catharine,  St.  Bar- 
bara, St.  Dorothy,  and  St.  Margaret.  To  these  come  the  foolish,  seeking  that  they 
will  impart  to  them  of  their  oil,  that  is, as  the  actor  explained  it,  intercede  with  God 
for  them  that  they  also  may  be  admitted  to  the  marriage,  that  is,  to  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  What  happens?  the  wise  absolutely  deny  that  they  can  communicate  aught. 
Then  a  sad  spectacle  began — the  foolish  knocked,  they  wept,  they  were  instant  in 
prayer — but  all  profited  not  a  jot,  they  were  bidden  to  depart  and  buy  oil.  Which 
when  that  prince  saw  and  heard,  he  is  said  to  have  been  so  amazed,  that  he  fell  into 
a  grievous  and  dangerous  sickness.  '  What,'  he  exclaimed, '  is  our  Christian  faith,  if 
neither  Mary  nor  any  other  saint  can  be  persuaded  to  intercede  for  us]'  From  this 
sadness  an  apoplexy  had  its  rise,  of  which  he  died  the  fourth  day  after,  and  was 
buried  at  Eisenach."  This  event  is  told  with  some  differences  in  Carltle's  Mis- 
cellanies, V.  2,  p.  415.  It  may  be  observed  here  that  this  parable  was  a  very  favour- 
ite subject  for  the  mysteries  in  the  middle  ages.  (See  Du  Meril's  Poesies  popu- 
laires  Latines,  p.  138.) 

*  In  the  Pirke  Avoth  there  is  this  comparison  :  Seculum  hoc  simile  est  vestibulo, 
et  seculum  futurum  triclinio.  Praepara  teipsum  in  vestibulo,  ut  ingredi  possis  in  tri- 
clinium. 

t  Compare  Milton's  Sonnet  to  a  Virtuous  Young  Lady,  where  there  is  allusion 
in  almost  every  word  to  this  latter  portion  of  our  parable. 
Thy  care  is  fixed  and  zealously  attends 
To  fill  thy  odorous  lamp  with  deeds  of  light. 
And  hope  that  reaps  not  shame.     Therefore  be  sure. 
Thou,  when  the  Bridegroom  with  his  feastful  friends 
Passes  to  bliss  in  the  mid  hour  of  night, 
Hast  gained  thy  entrance,  virgin  wise  and  pure. 
}  The  same  from  whom  an  extract  is  given,  p.  198,  note. 


THE  TEN  VIRGINS.  207 

kind,  come,  and  the  open  door  doth  not  deny  itself  to  them,  for  Christ, 
the  Door,  is  infinite  to  pardon,  reaching  beyond  every  degree  and  every 
amount  of  wickedness.  But  then  what  saith  he  ?  The  door  is  shut. 
No  one's  penitence, — no  one's  prayer, — no  one's  groaning  shall  any 
more  be  admitted.  That  door  is  shut,  which  received  Aaron  after  his 
idolatry, — which  admitted  David  after  his  adultery — after  his  homicide, 
which  not  only  did  not  repel  Peter  after  his  threefold  denial,  but  deli- 
vered its  keys  to  be  guarded  by  him."     (See  Luke  xvi.  26.) 

The  door  once  shut,  "  oftenoards  came  the  other  virgins,  sayings 
Lord,  Lord,  open  to  us,''  not  that  they  have  now  found  the  oil,  but  hav- 
ing sought  it  in  vain,  they  come  looking  for  mercy,  when  now  it  is  the 
time  of  judgment.*  In  the  title  "  Lord,''  by  which  they  address  the 
bridegroom,  they  claim  to  stand  in  a  near  and  intimate  relation  to  him ; 
as  in  the  "  Lord,  Lord,"  twice  repeated,  is  an  evidence  of  the  earnest- 
ness  with  which  they  now  claim  admission  ;  some  say,  also  of  their  vain 
confidence ;  but  perhaps  rather  of  the  misgiving  which  already  pos- 
sesses them,  lest  they  should  be  excluded  from  the  nuptial  feast,  lest  it 
be  now  too  late,  lest  the  needful  conditions  be  found  unfulfilled  on  their 
part ; — even  as  it  proves  ;  for  in  them  that  solemn  line  of  the  old  Church 
hymn  must  find  itself  true.  Plena  luctu  caret  fructu  sera  pcenitentia. 
And  in  reply  to  their  claim  to  be  admitted  they  hear  from  within  the 
sentence  of  their  exclusion, — "  ife  answered  and  said,  Verily  I  say  unto 
you,  I  know  you  not."  It  is  not  that  he  disclaims  an  outward  know- 
ledge, but  he  does  not  know  them  in  that  sense  in  which  the  Lord  says, 
"  1  know  my  sheep,  and  am  known  of  mine."  This  knowledge  is  of 
necessity  reciprocal,  so  that  Augustine's,  though  it  may  seem  at  first  a 
slight,  is  indeed  a  very  profound  remark,  when  explaining,  ^^  I  know  you 
not,"  he  observes,  it  is  nothing  else  than,  "  Ye  know  not  me."  Of  course 
the  issue  is,  that  the  foolish  virgins  remain  excluded,  and  for  ever,  from 
the  marriage  feast. "j"  (See  Isai.  Ixv.  13.)  On  this  their  exclusion 
Bengel  observes,  that  there  are  four  classes  of  persons;  those  that  have 
an  abundant  entrance  into  the  kingdom,  entering  as  it  were  with  sails 
set  into  the  haven  ;  those  again  that  are  saved,  as  shipwrecked  mariners 
reaching  with  difficulty  the  shore.     On  the  other  side,  there  are  those 

*  Augustine,  Ep.  140,  c.  35. 

t  We  have  at  Luke  xiii.  25,  the  same  image  of  the  excluded  vainly  seeking  an  en- 
trance, though  it  appears  with  important  modifications.  It  is  there  the  master,  who 
has  appointed  a  set  time  in  the  evening  by  which  all  his  servants  shall  have  re- 
turned home.  When  the  hour  arrives,  he  rises  up  and  bars  his  doors,  and  those  of 
the  household  who  have  lingered  and  arrive  later  cannot  persuade  him  again  to 
open  them.  They  remain  without,  and  he  declares  the  fellowship  between  them 
and  him  has  never  been  more  than  an  outward  one,  and  now  is  broken  altogether. 


208  THE  TEN  VIRGINS. 

who  go  evidently  the  broad  way  to  destruction,  whose  sins  go  before 
them  ;  while  again,  there  are  those  who,  though  they  seemed  not  far  off 
from  the  kingdom  of  God,  yet  miss  it  after  all :  such  were  these  five 
foolish  virgins,  and  the  fate  of  these,  who  were  so  near,  and  yet  after  all 
fell  short,  he  observes  with  truth,  must  always  appear  the  most  misera- 
ble of  all.  Lest  that  may  be  our  fate,  the  Lord  says  to  us, — for  what 
he  said  to  his  hearers  then,  he  says  unto  all,  to  his  Church  and  to  every 
member  of  it  in  every  age, — "  '  Watch  therefore,  for  ye  knoto  neither  the 
day  nor  the  hour  ;'*  and  this  being  so,  the  only  certain  way  to  be  ready 
upon  that  day,  is  that  you  be  ready  upon  every  day  :  and  the  parable 
has  taught  you  that  unreadiness  upon  that  day  is  without  a  remedy  ; 
the  doom  of  the  foolish  virgins  has  shown  you  that  the  work,  which 
should  have  been  the  work  of  a  life,  cannot  be  huddled  up  into  a  mo- 
ment.     '  Watch  therefore,  for  ye  know  neither  the  day  nor  the  hour.''  " 

This  parable  will  obtain  a  wider  application  if  we  keep  in  memory 
that,  while  it  is  quite  true  that  there  is  one  great  coming  of  the  Lord  at 
the  last,  yet  not  the  less  does  he  come  in  all  the  great  crises  of  his 
Church,  at  each  new  manifestation  of  his  Spirit  j  and  at  each  of  these 
too  there  is  a  separation  among  those  who  are  called  by  his  name,  into 
wise  and  foolish,  as  they  are  spiritually  alive  or  dead.  Thus  at  Pente- 
cost, when  by  his  Spirit  he  returned  to  his  Church,  he  came  :  the  pru- 
dent  in  Israel  went  in  with  him  to  the  feast,  the  foolish  tarried  without. 
Thus  too  he  came  at  the  Reformation  :  those  that  had  oil  went  in :  those 
that  had  empty  lamps,  the  form  of  godliness  without  the  power,  tarried 
without.  Each  of  these  was  an  example  of  that  which  should  be  more 
signally  fulfilled  at  the  end. 

It  remains  to  say  a  few  words  on  the  relation  in  which  this  parable 
stands  to  that  of  the  Marriage  of  the  King's  Son,  and  how  it  happens 
that  in  that  the  unworthy  guest  actually  finds  admission  to  the  marriage 
supper,  and  is  only  from  thence  cast  out,  while  in  this  the  foolish  virgins 
are  not  so  much  as  admitted  to  the  feast.  It  might  indeed  be  answered, 
that  this  is  accidental, — that  the  differences  grow  out  of  the  different  con- 
struction of  the  two  parables  ;  but  by  such  answers  every  thing  that  is 
distinctive  in  the  parables  may  be  explained  away  :  and  we  treat  them 
with  greater  respect,  when  we  look  for  some  deeper  lying  reason.  The 
explanation  seems  to  be,  that  the  marriage  festivities  which  are  there 
spoken  of,  arc  different  from  these.  In  Gerhard's  words,  "  Those  are 
celebrated  in  this  life  in  the  Church  militant,  these  at  the  last  day  in  the 

*  What  is  more  in  this  verse  should  have  no  place  in  the  text,  and  has  probably 
been  brought  into  it  from  the  parallel  passages,  such  as  Matt.  xxiv.  44.  It  is  excluded 
by  Lachmann. 


THE  TEN  VIRGINS.  209 

Church  triumphant.  To  those,  even  they  are  admitted  who  are  not 
adorned  with  the  wedding  garment,  but  to  these  only  they  to  whom  it  is 
granted  that  they  should  be  arrayed  in  fine  linen,  clean  and  white,  for 
the  fine  linen  is  the  righteousness  of  saints  ;  (Rev.  xix.  8  ;)  to  those  men 
are  called  by  the  trumpet  of  the  Gospel  ; — to  these  by  the  trumpet  of 
the  Archangel.  To  those,  who  enters  can  again  go  out  from  them,  or 
be  cast  out ; — who  is  once  introduced  to  these,  never  goes  out,  nor  is 
cast  out  from  them  any  more :  wherefore  it  is  said,  '  The  door  was 
shut.'  " — We  may  finish  the  consideration  of  this  exquisite  parable  with 
the  words  in  which  Augustine  concludes  an  homily*  upon  it:  "Now 
we  labour,  and  our  lamps  fluctuate  among  the  gusts  and  temptations  of 
the  present  world  ;  but  only  let  us  give  heed  that  our  flame  burn  in 
such  strength,  that  the  winds  of  temptation  may  rather  fan  the  flame 
than  extinguish  it."']' 

*  Serm.  93,  c.  10. — Besides  the  passage  referred  to  p.  207,  note,  there  is  another  in 
Luke  (xii.  35-38)  offering  many  analogies  to  this  parable,  though  with  differences  as 
well.  The  faithful  appear  there  not  as  virgins  but  as  servants,  that  is,  their  active  la- 
bour for  their  Lord  is  more  brought  out,  and  they  are  waiting  for  him  not  as  here  when 
he  shall  come  to,  but  when  he  shall  return  from,  the  wedding  (tto'ts  duaXicrci  U  rwf  ya^toi/), 
from  the  heavenly  bridal,  the  union  with  the  Church  in  heaven.  The  warning  to  a 
preparedness  to  meet  him  clothes  itself  under  images  not  exactly  similar.  They  must 
have  their  loins  girt  up,  (Jer.  i.  17  ;  1  Pet.  i.  13,)  and  their  lights  burning — that  is,  they 
must  be  prompt  and  succinct  to  wait  upon  him,  and  his  home  must  be  bright  and  beam- 
ing with  lights.  The  festival  must  be  prepared  which  should  celebrate  his  return,  and 
his  admission  must  be  without  delay,  and  then  that  which  they  have  prepared  for  him 
shall  indeed  prove  to  have  been  prepared  for  themselves  ;  "  He  shall  gird  himself  and 
make  them  to  sit  down  to  meat,  and  come  forth,  and  serve  them."  What  he  did  at 
the  Paschal  Supper  (John  xiii.  4),  shall  prove  but  a  prophecy  of  what  he  shall  repeat 
in  a  more  glorious  manner  at  the  Marriage  Supper  of  the  Lamb. 

t  In  early  times  and  in  the  middle  ages  this  parable  was  a  very  favourite  subject  of 
Christian  Art.  Munter  {Sinnbilden.  d.  Alt.  Christ.,  v.  2,  p.  91)  mentions  a  picture  of 
the  five  wise  virgins  in  the  Cemetery  of  the  Church  of  St.  Agnes,  at  Rome,  probably 
of  very  early  date  ;  and  Caumont  {Archit.  Eelig.  au  Moyen  Age,  p.  345,)  describing 
the  representations  of  the  Last  Judgment  so  often  found  over  the  great  western  door  of 
a  Cathedral,  says:  On  recontre  parfois  dans  les  voussures  des  portes  dix  statuettes  de 
femmes,  les  unes  tenant  soigneusement  a  deux  mains  une  lampe  en  forme  de  coupe  ; 
les  autres  tenant  n^gligemment  d'une  seule  main  la  meme  lampe  renvers^e.  Le  Sculp- 
teur  a  toujours  eu  soin  de  placer  les  Vierges  sages  a.  la  droit  du  Christ,  et  du  cotd  des 
bienheureu.t :  les  Vierges  folles  k  sa  gauche,  du  cotd  des  reprouv^s.  For  many  further 
details  of  interest,  see  Didkon's  Manuel  d' Inconographie  Chretienne,  p.  217. 


210  THE  TALENTS. 


PARABLE  XIY. 


THE    TALENTS. 

Matthew  xxv.  14-30. 

While  the  virgins  were  represented  as  waiting  for  the  Lord,  we  have 
here  the  servants  loorking  for  him  : — there  the  inward  spiritual  rest  of 
the  Christian  was  described, — here  his  external  activity.  There,  by  the 
end  of  the  foolish  virgins,  we  were  warned  against  declensions  and  de- 
cays in  the  inward  spiritual  life, — here  against  sluggishness  and  sloth 
in  our  outward  vocation  and  work.  That  parable  enforced  the  need  of 
keeping  the  heart  with  all  diligence,  this  the  need  of  giving  all  diligence 
also  to  the  outward  work,  if  we  would  be  found  of  Christ  in  peace  at  the 
day  of  his  appearing.  It  is  not,  therefore,  without  good  reason  that  they 
appear  in  their  actual  order,  that  of  the  Virgins  first,  and  the  Talents 
following,  since  the  sole  condition  of  a  profitable  outward  work  for  the 
kingdom  of  God,  is  that  the  life  of  God  be  diligently  maintained  within 
the  heart.*  Or  there  is  another  light  in  which  we  may  consider  the 
distinction  between  the  virgins  and  the  servants,  that  the  first  represent 
the  more  contemplative, — the  last,  the  more  active  working  members  of 
the  Church, — a  distinction  universally  recognized  in  early  times,  though 
of  late  nearly  lost  sight  of  among  us.  It  is  true  that  every  member  of 
the  Church  ought  to  partake  of  both,  of  action  and  contemplation,  so  that 
even  under  this  view  both  the  parables  will  still  keep  their  application 
to  all ;  but  one  element  may  predominate  in  one,  the  other  in  another : 
the  endeavour  of  each  must  be  harmoniously  to  proportion  them  in  his 
own  case,  according  to  the  gifts  which  he  finds  within  himself,  and  the 
needs  which  he  sees  in  others  around  him. 

We  meet  with  another  recension,  so  to  speak,  of  this  parable  at  Mark 
xiii.  34,  with  not  unimportant  variations,  as  there  also  are  traces  at  the 
same  place  of  the  ten  virgins,  ("  Lest  coming  suddenly  he  find  you  sleep- 
ing," ver.  36 ;)  the  whole,  however,  which  St.  Matthew  records  more 
distinctly,  being  by  St.  Mark  blended  together,  and  more  briefly  recorded. 

*  Or  they  may  be  co-ordinated  with  one  another.  Thus  Gerhard  (Harm.  Evang., 
c.  1G4) :  Lampas  fulgens  est  talentum  usui  datum,  lampas  extincta,  talentum  otiosum  et 
interram  absconditum. 


THE  TALENTS.  211 

There  is  no  doubt,  however,  that  it  is  the  same  discourse  which  both 
Evangelists  are  relating,  as  in  both  it  occurs  immediately  after  the  warn- 
ing concerning  the  calamities  of  the  last  days.  St.  Luke  (xix.  11)  has 
recorded  for  us  a  parable  very  similar  to  this  one,  but  certainly  not 
identical,  however  some  expositors,  as  Maldonatus,  may  have  affirmed 
the  identity  of  the  two.*  But  every  thing  is  against  this.  The  time 
and  place  are  different ;  the  parable  which  Luke  records,  having  been 
spoken  when  Jesus  was  now  drawing  near  to  Jerusalem,  but  had  not 
yet  made  his  triumphal  entry, — this,  while  he  was  seated  on  the  Mount 
of  Olives,  the  third  day  after  his  entry  into  the  city.  That  was  spoken 
to  the  multitude  as  well  as  to  his  disciples ;  this  in  the  innermost  circle 
of  his  own  most  trusted  followers,  of  those  to  whom  he  was  about  to  con- 
fide the  carrying  forward  of  the  great  work  which  he  had  himself  com- 
menced on  earth.  The  scope  of  that,  which  is  the  more  complex  parable, 
is  twofold,  and  may  be  thus  defined.  The  multitude,  and  perhaps  many 
that  were  following  the  Lord  with  true  hearts,  thought  that  he  was  now 
going  to  take  his  kingdom  and  to  reign — to  sit  on  the  throne  of  his  father 
David  at  Jerusalem.  He  would  teach  them,  on.  the  contrary,  that  there 
must  yet  be  a  long  interval  ere  that  should  be, — that  he  must  go  away, 
and  only  after  a  long  period  return,  and  that  not  till  that  period  had  elapsed, 
should  the  powers  that  opposed  his  kingdom  be  effectually  put  down.  In 
the  mean  time,  (and  here  is  the  point  of  contact  between  the  two  parables,) 
those  who  stood  to  him  in  the  relation  of  servants  and  friends,  were  not  to 
be  idl}''  waiting  the  time  of  his  coming  back,  but  should  seek  earnestly  to 
forward  his  interests  according  to  the  ability  which  was  given  them> 
being  sure  that  at  his  return  he  would  reward  each  accordin  g  as  his 
work  should  be  ; — at  which  time  of  his  return,  as  St.  Luke,  in  accord- 
ance to  the  plan  of  his  parable,  relates,  he  would  also  utterly  destroy  his 
enemies, — break  in  pieces  with  the  rod  of  his  anger  those  who  refused  to 
bow  to  the  sceptre  of  his  love.  The  scope  of /«s  parable  then  is  two- 
fold. It  is  addressed,  in  part,  to  that  giddy  light-minded  multitude,  who 
were  following  Jesus  with  an  expectation  that  his  cause  woulds  speedily 
triumph,  and  who,  when  they  should  find  their  expectations  disappointed, 
might,  perhaps,  many  of  them  turn  against  him  and  join  in  the  cry, 
Crucify  him.  He  warns  them  that  his  triumph  over  his  enemies,  though 
not  speedy,  yet  should  be  certain,  even  as  it  would  be  terrible  :  it  con- 
tains for  them  a  double  warning,  that  they  be  not  offended  or  prevented 
from  attaching  themselves  yet  closer  to  him  and  to  his  Church  by  the  things 
which  should  befall  him  at  Jerusalem  ;  and  that,  least  of  all,  they  should 

*  The  arguments  against  the  identity  of  the  two  parables  are  well  stated  by  Ger- 
hard.    {Harm.  Evang.,  c.  154,  ad  init.) 


212  THE  TALENTS. 

suffer  themselves  to  be  drawn  into  the  ranks  of  his  foes,  since  these  were 
doomed  to  an  utter  destruction.  For  the  disciples  also  it  contains  a 
warning,  that  this  long  period  which  should  intervene  before  his  coming 
again  in  glory  and  in  power,  was  not  to  be  for  them  a  period  of  sloth 
and  inactivity,  but  a  time  in  which  they  would  be  required  to  show  all 
good  fidelity  to  their  absent  Lord  :  which  fidelity  would  by  him  be  ac- 
knowledged and  abundantly  rewarded,  even  as  negligence  and  sloth 
would  meet  also  their  due  recompense  of  reward. 

Here  it  is  at  once  evident  how  idle  the  objections  are  which  have 
lately  been  brought  against  the  parable  as  given  by  the  third  Evangelist. 
The  objector*  imagines  that  he  detects  there,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Mar- 
riage of  the  King's  Son,  a  blending  together,  through  loose  and  floating 
tradition,  of  heterogeneous  materials, — that  in  fact  we  have  there,  joined 
in  one,  what  ought  to  be  two  parables,  and  this  so  awkwardly  that  the 
joinings  are  plainly  discernible — the  occasion  of  their  confusion  being 
that  they  both  turned  upon  the  common  fact  of  a  lord  absenting  himself 
from  his  home  for  a  while.  He  observes  that  servants  and  citizens 
stand  in  no  relation  to  one  another,  that  with  the  very  slightest  alterations, 
ver.  12, 14,  15,  27,  would  form  a  complete  whole,  and  standing  by  them- 
selves might  be  entitled  the  parable  of  the  Rebellious  Citizens  :  the  re- 
maining verses  would  form  the  parable  of  the  Pounds,  which  would 
then  be  free  from  all  admixture  of  foreign  elements. f 

But  only  let  that  be  kept  in  mind  which  this  objector  seems  to  have 
forgotten,  or  never  to  have  perceived,  that  there  were  two  groups  of 
hearers  in  different  states  of  mind  and  needing  different  admonitions,  to 
whom  the  Lord  addressed  the  parable  which  has  been  recorded  in  St. 
Luke,  and  it  will  at  once  be  perceived  how  he  divided  to  all,  to  his  own 
disciples  and  to  the  multitude,  according  to  their  different  needs.  In 
Luke  the  parable  is  of  necessity  more  complex,  as  having  a  more  com- 
plex  purpose  to  fulfil.  In  Matthew  it  is  simpler  ;  for  it  is  addressed  to 
the  disciples,  or  rather  to  the  apostles  alone,  and  the  parts  there  meant 
for  the  multitude  would  be  superfluous  here,  and  accordingly  find  no 
place. 

To  the  apostles  then  and  to  none  other  the  parable  of  the  Talents, 
"which  alone  concerns  us  now,  was  spoken.     It  is  needful  for  the  right 

•  Strauss,  Lebnt  Jesu,  v.  1,  p.  675. 

t  This  view  is  not  new  :  indeed  his  whole  book  is  little  more  than  a  mustering  up 
and  setting  in  array  objections  which  had  been  made,  and  most  of  them  answered,  long 
ago.  Ungeron  the  same  ground  of  the  lack  of  unity  in  this  parable,  says  (De  Par.  J. 
Nat., p.  130) :  Itaque  siniplicem  apud  Matthasum  parabolam,et  omnium  Christi  parabo- 
larum  simplicitatem  atque  unitatem  recordanti  mihi  Lucas  visus  est  cum  illfi  simplici 
parabola,  hie  alteram  similem,  sed  alias  et  aliier  prolatam,  in  unam  composuisse. 


THE  TALENTS.  213 

understanding  of  its  outward  circumstances  that  we  keep  in  mind  the 
relation  of  masters  and  slaves  in  antiquity  :  for  that  between  masters  and 
servants,  as  it  now  exists  among  us,  affords  no  satisfactory  explanation. 
The  master  of  an  household  goin  gaway  does  not  leave  with  his  servants, 
and  it  is  foreign  to  all  the  relations  between  them,  moneys  wherewith  to 
trade  in  his  absence  j  nor  if  he  did,  could  he  punish  them  on  his  return 
for  neglect  of  duty,  as  the  slothful  servant  is  here  punished.  But  slaves 
in  antiquity  were  often  artisans,  or  were  allowed  otherwise  to  engage 
freely  in  business,  paying,  as  it  was  frequently  arranged,  a  fixed  yearly 
sum  to  their  master  :  or  as  here,  they  had  money  given  them  wherewith 
to  trade  on  his  account,  or  with  which  to  enlarge  their  business,  and  to 
bring  him  in  a  share  of  their  profits.*  In  the  present  instance  some- 
thing of  the  sort  is  assumed,  when  it  is  said,  "  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is 
as  a  man  travelling  into  a  far  country,  who  called  his  own  f  servants  and 
delivered  to  them  his  goods."  It  was  "  afar  country  "  into  which  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  was  about  to  travel ;:}:  and  that  his  servants  might  be  fur- 
nished in  his  absence,  he  was  about  to  entrust  them,  and  all  their  suc- 
cessors, whose  representatives  they  were,  with  many  excellent  gifts. 
The  day  of  Pentecost  was  no  doubt  the  tim^  when  the  goods,  that  is, 
spiritual  powers  and  capacities,  were  by  him  most  manifestly  and  most 
abundantly  communicated  to  his  servants,  that  they  might  profit  withal. 
(Ephes.  iv.  8-12.)  Yet^nvas  not  that  the  first  occasion  when  they  were 
so  given  ;  the  Lord  had  communicated  to  them  much  during  his  earthly 
sojourn  with  them,  (John  xv.  3,)  and  before  his  ascension,  (Johnxx.  22,) 
and  from  that  day  forth  he  has  been  evermore  delivering  his  goods  to 
each  successive  generation  of  his  servants.  This  being  so,  the  parable 
has  application  to  all  times ; — yet  not  primarily  to  all  persons  :  it  was 
first  addressed  to  the  apostles  alone,  and  the  gifts  for  the  exercise  of  the 
ministry,  the  powers  which  Christ  has  given  to  his  Church,  are  signified, 
in  the  first  place,  by  the  committed  talents.  Seeing,  however,  that  all 
are  called  in  their  measure  to  edify  one  another,  that  all  Christians  have 
a  spiritual  vocation,  and  are  intrusted  with  gifts,  more  or  fewer,  for 
vv'hich  they  will  have  to  render  an  account,  the  parable  is  applicable  to 
all.  While,  too,  it  has  relation  first  to  spiritual  gifts  and  capacities, 
yet  it  has  not  therefore  no  relation  to  those  other  gifts  and  endowments, 

*  See  Mr.  Greswell's  Exp.  of  the  Far.,  v.  5,  part  2,  p.  27,  seq.,  and  the  Diet, 
of  Gr.  and  Rom.  Antt.,  s.  v.  Servus,  pp.  867,  873. 

t  It  should  not  be  "  his  own  servants  ;"  for  there  is  no  emphasis  here  on  the  iSiov;. 
It  is  only  the  same  misuse  that  in  later  Latin  has  proprius  for  suus  or  ejus.  So  Matt. 
TTJi.  5,  dniiXdev  ei;  tov  'iitov  dypov, 

t  Auct.  Oper.  Imperf.,  Horn.  53:  Ad  Patrem  iturus,  peregre  se  iturum  dicit,  prop- 
ter caritatem  sanctorum,  quos  relinquebat  in  terris,  cum  magis  peregre  esset  in  mundo. 


214  THE  TALENTS. 

as  wealth,  reputation,  ability,  which,  though  not  in  themselves  spiritual, 
are  yet  given  to  men  that  they  may  be  turned  to  spiritual  ends, — are  ca- 
pable of  being  sanctified  to  the  Lord,  and  consecrated  to  his  service,  and 
for  the  use  or  abuse  of  which,  the  possessors  will  have  also  to  render  an 
account.  There  is,  indeed,  a  witness  for  this  in  our  English  word 
"  to/en<,"  which  has  come  to  signify  any  mental  endowments,  faculties, 
or  powers  whatever,  a  use  which  is  of  course  entirely  the  growth  of  this 
parable,  even  as  it  is  a  proof  of  the  manner  in  which  it  has  worked  itself 
into  the  thoughts  and  language  of  men. 

But  different  men  receive  these  gifts  in  very  different  proportions  : 
"  Uiito  one  he  gave  Jive  taJenls,  to  another  two,  and  to  another  one  ;  to  every 
man  according  to  his  several  aiility.''*  It  is  not  that  the  gifts,  as  Theo- 
phylact  explains  it,  were  to  each  "  according  to  the  measure  of  his  faith 
and  purity,"  for  the  faith  which  purifies  is  itself  one  of  the  chiefest  of 
these  gifts ;  but  to  each  according  to  his  ability,  inasmuch  as  the  natu- 
ral is  the  ground  upon  which  the  spiritual  is  superinduced,  and  grace 
does  not  dissolve  the  groundwork  of  the  individual  character,  nor  abolish 
all  its  peculiarities,  nor  bring  all  that  are  subject  to  it  to  a  common  stand- 
ard ;  (see  1  Cor.  xii.  4-31.;  Ephes.  iv.  16.)  The  natural  gifts  are 
as  the  vessel,  which  may  be  large  or  may  be  small,  and  which  receives 
according  to  its  capacity  ;■)■  but  which  in  each  case  \s  filled  ;  so  that  we 
are  not  to  think  of  him  who  had  received  the  two  talents,  as  incompletely 
furnished  in  comparison  with  him  that  had  received  the  five,  any  more 
than  we  should  affirm  a  small  circle  incomplete  as  compared  with  a  large. 
Unfitted  he  might  be  for  so  wide  a  sphere  of  labour,  but  altogether  as 
perfectly  equipped  for  that  to  which  he  was  destined  :  for  "  there  are  di- 
versities of  gifts,  but  the  same  Spirit," — and  as  the  body  is  not  all  eye, 
nor  are  all  in  an  army  generals  or  captains,:}:  so  neither  in  the  Church 
are  all  furnished  to  be  leaders  and  governors.  Yet  while  we  speak  of  na- 
tural capacity  being  as  the  vessel  for  receiving  the  wine  of  the  Spirit, 
we  must  not  leave  out  of  account,  that  comparative  unfaithfulness,  stop- 
ping short  indeed  of  that  which  would  cause  the  gift  to  be  quite  taken 
away,  will  yet  narrow  the  vessel ;  even  as  fidelity  has  this  tendency — 
to  dilate  it,  so  that  the  person  with  far  inferior  natural  gifts  yet  often 
brings  in  a  far  more  abundant  harvest,  than  one  with  superior  powers, 
who  yet  does  bring  in  something. 

*  Cajetan :  Disponit  siquidem  Deus  in  Ecclesia.  suaviter  omnia  :  neminem  onerat 
supra  vires,  nulli  negat  donum  congraum  suis  viribus. 

t  Jerome :  Christus  doctrinam  Evangelicam  tradidit,  non  pro  largitale  et  parcitate 
alteri  plus,  et  alteri  minus  tribuens,  sed  pro  accipientium  viribus  ;  quomod6  et  apostolus 
COS  qui  solidum  cibum  capere  non  poterant,  lacte  potlsse  sc  dicit. 

X  See  Clemens  Rom.  ad  Corinth.,  c.  37,  where  this  comparison  is  used. 


THE  TALENTS.  215 

Having  thus  committed  the  talents  to  his  servants,  and  divided  wisely 
unto  each  according  to  his  several  powers,  the  lord,  without  more  delay, 
"  straightioay  took  his  journey."     In  the  things  earthly  the  householder's 
distribution  of  the  gifts  naturally  and  of  necessity  precedes  his  departure  ; 
in  the  heavenly  it  is  not  altogether  so ;  the  Ascension,  or  departure,  goes 
before  Pentecost,  or  the  distribution  of  gifts  ;  yet  the  "  straightway"  still 
remains  in  full  force  :  the  interval  between  them  was  the  smallest,  one 
following  hard  upon  the  other,  however  the  order  was  reversed.      The 
three  verses  which  follow  (17-19)  embrace  the  whole  period  interven- 
ing between  the  first  and  second  coming  of  Christ.     Two  of  the  servants, 
those  to  whom  the  largest  moneys  have  been  committed,  lay  out  those 
sums  with  diligence  and  success.     These  are  the  representatives  of  all 
that  are  diligent  and    faithful  in  their  office  and  ministry,  whatsoever 
that  may  be.     There  is  this  variation  between  our  parable  and  St.  Luke's, 
that  here  the  faithful  servants  multiply  their  unequal  sums  in  the  same 
proportions  :  "  He  that  had  received  the  Jive  talents,  made  them  other  jive 
talents"  and  again,  "  he  that  had  received  the  two,  he  also  gained  other 
two  ;" — while  there  they  multiply  their  equal  sums  in  different  propor- 
tions ;  all  had  alike  received  a  pound,  but  one  gained  with  that  pound 
ten  pounds,   and  another  five.     Two  most  important  truths   are  thus 
brought  out,  as  it  could  not  have  conveniently  been  done  in  a  single  nar- 
ration— first  by  St.  Matthew  this  truth,  that  according  as  we  have  re- 
ceived will  it  be  expected  from  us — and  this  secondly  by  St.  Luke,  that 
as  men  differ  in  fidelity,  in  zeal,  in  labour,  so  will  they  differ  in  the 
amount  of  their  spiritual  gains. — But  if  two  of  the  servants  were  thus 
faithful  in  the  things  committed  to  them,  it  was  otherwise  with  the  third  ; 
"  He  that  had  received  one  "  talent,  "  we7it  and  digged  in  the  earth,  and  hid 
his  lord's  money  " — an  apt  image  for  the  failing  to  use  divinely  imparted 
gifts,   for  "  Wisdom  that  is  hid,  and  treasure  that  is  hoarded  up,  what 
profit  is  in  them  both  ?      Better  is  he  that  hideth  his  folly,  than  a  man 
that  hideth  his  wisdom."*     (Sirach,  xx.  30,  31.)      In  St.  Luke  he  hides 
his  pound  in  a  napkin,  but  that  would  have  been  impossible  with  so  large 


*  Compare  Shakspeare  : — 

"  Heaven  does  with  us,  as  we  with  torches  do : 
Not  light  them  for  themselves :  for  if  our  virtues 
Did  not  go  forth  of  us,  'twere  all  alike 
As  if  we  had  them  not.     Spirits  are  not  finely  touched 
But  for  fine  issues :  nor  Nature  never  lends 
The  smallest  scruple  of  her  excellence. 
But  like  a  thrifty  goddess  she  determines 
Herself  the  glory  of  a  creditor, 
Both  thanks  and  use." 


216  THE  TALENTS. 

a  sum  as  a  talent,  which  is,  therefore,  more  fitly  said  to  have  been  con- 
cealed in  the  earth.* 

^^ After  a  long  time  the  lord  of  those  servants  cometh,  and  reckoneth  with 
them.''  In  the  joyful  coming  forward  of  the  faithful  servants,  we  see  an 
example  of  boldness  in  the  day  of  judgment  :"  they  had  something  to 
show,  as  Paul  so  earnestly  desired  that  he  might  have,  when  he  said  to 
his  beloved  Thessalonian  converts,  "  What  is  our  hope,  or  joy,  or  crown 
of  rejoicing  ?  Are  not  even  ye  in  the  presence  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
at  his  coming  ?"  (1  Thess.  ii.  19  ;  2  Cor.  i.  14  ;  Phil.  iv.  1.)  In  St. 
Matthew  the  faithful  servant  comes  forward,  saying,  "  Behold,  I  have 
gained,"  while  in  St.  Luke  it  is,  "  Thy  pound  hath  gained;"  thus  be- 
tween them  they  make  up  the  speech  of  St.  Paul,  "  I — yet  not  I,  but  the 
grace  of  God  that  was  with  me."  And  even  in  St.  Matthew,  "  I  have 
gained  "  is  preceded  by  that  other  word  "  thou  deliveredst  me  y"  it  is 
only  thy  gift  which  I  have  so  multiplied.  In  St.  Matthew,  as  has  been 
observed,  the  gain  is  according  to  the  talents,  five  for  five,  and  two  for 
two.  Consistently  with  this,  the  commendation  of  the  servants  is  express- 
ed in  exactly  the  same  language,  even  as  the  reward  to  each  is  precisely 
the  same  :  to  each  it  is  said,  "  Enter  thou  into  the  joy  of  thy  Lord,"f 
that  is,  become  a  sharer  of  my  joy.  No  doubt  the  image  underlying 
this  language  is,  that  the  master  celebrates  his  return  by  a  great  festi- 
val, to  which  each  of  the  servants,  as  soon  as  he  has  rendered  his  ac- 
counts, and  shown  that  he  has  been  true  to  his  master's  interests  in  his 
absence,  is  bidden  freely  to  enter.  It  is  well  known  that  under  certain 
circumstances  the  master's  inviting  his  slave  to  sit  down  with  him  at  ta- 
ble, did  itself  constitute  the  act  of  manumission  ;  henceforth  he  was  free.ij: 


*  Jerome  (Ad  Bamas.)  finds  a  further  distinction  between  hiding  in  the  earth  and 
in  a  napkin :  Hoc  talentum  nou  est  in  sudario  coUigandum,  id  est,  delicate  otioseque 
tractandum,  nee  in  terra,  defodiendum,  terrenis  scilicet  cogitationibus  obscurandum. 

t  Leighton's  words  on  this  entering  into  the  joy  of  the  Lord  are  beautiful :  "  It  is 
but  little  we  can  receive  here,  some  drops  of  joy  that  enter  into  us,  but  there  we  shall 
enter  into  joy,  as  vessels  put  into  a  sea  of  happiness."  Gerhard  has  the  same  thought: 
Tam  magnum  enim  erit  illud  gaudium,  ut  non  possit  in  homine  concludi  vel  ab  eo  com- 
prehendi,  ideo  homo  intrat  in  illud  incomprehensibile  gaudium,  non  autem  intrat  illud 
in  hominem  velut  ab  homine  comprehensum  ;  and  H.  de  Sto  Victore  (Ernd.  Theol., 
1.  3)  says  on  this  joy  of  the  Lord:  Triplex  est  gaudium  :  est  gaudium  seculi.est  gau- 
dium tuum,  est  gaudium  Domini  tui.  Primum  est  de  terrenil  affluentia, :  secundum  de 
bona,  conscientia :  tertium  de  seternitatis  experientia.  Non  igitur  exeas  in  gaudium 
seculi,  non  remaneas  in  gaudio  tuo,  sed  intrcs  gaudium  Domini  tui  .  .  .  Ad  primum 
exivit  homo,  cum  cecidit  de  paradiso :  ad  secundum  venire  incipit,  ciim  per  fidem 
reconciliatus  Deo.  Tunc  autem  ad  tertium  perveniet,  cCim  videndo  ipsum  sicuti  est 
in  aeternum  fruetur  ipso. 

t  See  the  Diet,  of  Gr.  and  Rom.  Antt.,  s.  v.  Manumissio,  p.  596. 


THE  TALENTS.  217 

Perhaps  there  may  be  here  allusion  to  something  of  the  kind — the  incor- 
poration in  an  act  of  what  once  he  had  spoken  in  words,  "  Henceforth  I 
call  you  not  servants,  .  .  but  I  have  called  you  friends."  (John  xv.  15 ; 
Luke  xii.  37 ;  Rev.  iii.  20.) 

But  there  remains  one  who  has  not  yet  given  in  his  account,  and  it 
has  been  often  observed  how  solemn  a  warning  there  is,  and  to  how  many, 
in  the  fact,  that  he  to  whom  only  the  one  talent  had  been  committed,  is 
the  one  who  is  found  faulty — since  an  excuse  like  the  following  might 
very  easily  occur  to  such  :  "  So  little  is  committed  to  my  charge,  that  it  ^ 
matters  not  how  I  administer  that  little  ;  at  the  best  I  cannot  do  much 
for  God's  glory  ;  what  signifies  the  little,  whether  it  be  done  or  left  un- 
done ?"  But  here  we  are  instructed  that  the  Lord  looks  for  fidelity  in 
little  as  well  as  in  much.*  We  can  well  understand  why  he  should 
have  lingered  to  the  last,  being  reluctant  to  appear  in  the  presence  of  his 
lord.  It  is  true  that  he  had  not  wasted  his  master's  goods  like  the  Un- 
just Steward,  nor  spent  all  his  portion  in  riotous  living  like  the  Prodigal, 
nor  was  he  ten  thousand  talents  in  debt  like  the  Unmerciful  Servant ;  and 
it  is  an  entire  mistake  to  mix  up  his  case  with  theirs,  when  it  should  be 
kept  entirely  distinct.  The  consequence  of  such  confounding  his  guilt 
with  theirs  would  be,  that  the  very  persons  whose  consciences  the  para- 
ble was  meant  to  reach  would  evade  its  force.  When  we  weave  the 
meshes  of  the  spiritual  net  so  large,  all  but  the  very  worst  offenders  are 
able  to  slip  through  :  and  the  parable  is  not  for  such,  not  for  those  that 
are  evidently  by  their  lives  and  actions  denying  that  they  count  Christ 
to  be  their  Lord  and  Master  at  all  :  it  is  not  for  them  who  thus  squander 
their  talent,  or  deny  that  they  have  ever  received  one  :  the  law,  and  their 
own  hearts,  tell  them  sufficiently  plainly  of  their  sin  and  danger.  But  the 
warning  we  have  here  is  for  them  who  hide  their  talent,  who  being  equip- 
ped for  a  sphere  of  activity  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  do  yet  choose,  to  use 
Bacon's  words,  "  a  goodness  solitary  and  particular,  rather  than  genera- 
tive and  seminal."  There  is  great  danger  that  such  might  deceive  them- 
selves, as  there  are  so  many  temptations  to  a  shrinking  from  the  labour 
and  the  toil  involved  in  a  diligent  laying  out  of  our  talent.  There  is  a 
show  of  humility  in  the  excuses  that  a  person  so  inclined  would  make ;  (/ 
as  for  instance,  "  The  care  of  my  own  soul  is  sufficient  to  occupy  me 
wholly ; — the  responsibility  of  any  spiritual  work  is  so  great,  so  awful, 
that  I  dare  not  undertake  it ; — while  I  am  employed  about  the  souls  of 
others,  I  may  perhaps  be  losing  my  own."     We  read  repeatedly  of  those 

*  Grotius:  In  eo  cui  minimum  erat  concreditum  negligentiae  exemplum  posuit 
Christus,  ne  quia  sperarct  excusatum  se  iri  ab  omni  labore,  ideo  quod  non  ezimia  dona 
accepisset. 

15 


218  THE  TALENTS. 

in  the  early  Church,  who  on  grounds  like  these,  persisted  in  refusing 
charges  to  which  they  were  called,  and  when  they  should  have  been  the 
salt  to  salt  the  earth,  chose  rather  to  retire  into  caves  and  wildernesses, 
forsaking  their  brethren,  whom  they  were  called  so  serve  in  the  active 
ministries  of  love.* 

The  warning  then  is  addressed  to  such  as  might  be  tempted  to  fol- 
low after  this  goodness  solitary  and  particular,  instead  of  serving  their 
generation  according  to  the  will  of  God.  The  root  out  of  which  this 
mischief  grows  is  laid  bare  in  the  words  which  this  slothful  servant  ut- 
ters, "  Lord,  I  kneio  thee  that  Ihou  art  an  hard  man.''  It  has  its  rise,  as 
almost  everything  else  that  is  evil,  in  a  false  view  of  the  character  of 
God.  For  we  must  not  understand  this  speech  as  an  excuse  framed 
merely  for  the  occasion,  but  it  is  the  true  out-speaking  of  the  inmost 
heart,  the  exact  expression  of  the  aspect  in  which  the  servant  did  actu- 
ally regard  his  lord.  The  churl  accounted  him  churlish,  thought  him 
even  such  an  one  as  himself:  he  did  not  believe  in  his  lord's  forgiving 
love,  and  in  his  gracious  acceptance  of  the  work  with  all  its  faults, 
which  was  done  for  him  out  of  a  true  heart,  and  with  a  sincere  desire  to 
please  him.  This  was  his  wilful  and  guilty  ignorance  concerning  the 
true  character  of  the  master  whom  he  was  called  to  serve.  But  to  know 
God's  name  is  to  trust  in  him.  They  indeed  who  undertake  a  ministry 
in  his  Church,  or  any  work  for  him,  are  well  aware  that  they  shall  com- 
mit manifold  mistakes  in  that  ministry,  which  they  might  avoid,  if  they 
declined  that  ministry  altogether, — even  many  sins  in  handling  divine 
things  which  they  might  escape,  if  they  wholly  refused  that  charge. f 

*  Augustine,  in  a  sermon  preached  on  the  anniversary  of  his  exaltation  to  the  epis- 
copal dignity,  {Serm.  339,  c.  3,)  makes  striking  use  of  this  parable,  while  he  is  speak- 
ing of  the  temptation,  whereof  he  was  conscious,  to  withdraw  from  the  active  labour  in 
the  Church,  and  to  cultivate  a  solitary  piety  :  Si  non  erogem,  et  pecuniam  servem,  terret 
me  Evangelium.  Possem  enim  dicere:  Quid  mihi  est  tjedio  esse  hominibus,  dicere  in- 
iquis,  Inique  agere  nolite,  sic  agite,  sic  agere  desistite  ]  Quid  mihi  est  oneri  esse  ho- 
minibus? Accepi  quomodo  vivam,  quomodo  jussus  sum,  quomodo  praeceptus  sum,  as- 
signem  quomodo  accepi ;  de  aliis  me  reddere  rationem  quo  mihi  ?  Evangelium  me 
terret.  Nam  ad  islam  securitatem  otiosissimam  nemo  me  vinceret :  nihil  est  melius^ 
nihil  dulcius,  quam  divinum  scrutari,  nullo  strepente,  thesaurum  ;  dulce  est,  bonum  est. 
Prsedicare,  arguere,  corripere,  aidificare,  pro  unoquoque  satagere,  magnum  onus,  mag- 
num pondus,  magnus  labor.  Quis  non  refugiat  istum  laborem  ?  Sed  terret  Evange- 
lium. And  again  {In  Ev.  Joh.,  Tract.  10)  :  Si  autem  fueris  frigidus,  marcidus,  ad  te 
solum  spectans,  et  quasi  tibi  sufficiens,  et  dicens  in  corde  tuo  :  Quid  mihi  est  curare 
aliena  peccata,  sufficit  mihi  anima  mea,  ipsam  integram  servem  Deo :  Eja  non  tibi 
venit  in  mentem  servus  ille  qui  abscondit  talentum  et  noluit  erogare  1  nunquid  enim 
accusatus  est,  quia  perdidit,  et  non  quia  sine  lucro  servavit?  Compare  what  he  beau- 
tifully says,  Enar.  in  Ps.  xcix.  2  ;  and  also  De  Fide  et  Oper.,  c.  17. 

t  This  sense  of  the  careful  and  accurate  handling  which  all  divine  things  require, 


THE  TALENTS.  219 

But  shall  those  who  are  competently  furnished  and  evidently  called,  be 
therefore  justified  or  excused  in  doing  so  ?  would  they  not,  so  acting, 
share  in  the  condemnation  of  this  servant  ?  would  they  not  testify  there- 
by that  they  thought  of  God,  as  he  thought  of  his  master — that  he  was 
an  hard  *  lord — extreme  to  mark  what  was  amiss — making  no  allow- 
ances,  accepting  never  the  will  for  the  deed,  but  watching  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  the  least  failure  or  mistake  on  the  part  of  his  servants  ? 

Nor  does  the  sluggard  in  the  parable  stop  here.  If  only  he  may 
roll  off  a  charge  from  himself,  he  cares  not  for  affixing  one  to  his  lord. 
In  his  speech,  half  cowering  and  half  defying,  and  in  this  respect,  a 
wonderful  picture  of  the  sinner's  bearing  towards  God,  he  shrinks  not 
from  attributing  to  him  the  character  of  an  harsh  unreasonable  despot,  ff 
who  requires  the  bricks  but  refuses  the  straw,  (Exod.  v.  7,)  who  would 
reap  what  he  has  not  sown,  and  gather  whence  he  has  not  strawed.f 
In  these  words  he  gives  evidence  that  he  as  entirely  has  mistaken  the 
nature  of  the  work  to  which  he  was  called,  as  the  character  of  the  mas- 
ter for  whom  it  should  have  been  done.:}:      In  the  darkness  of  his  heart 

and  the  exceeding  gravity  of  a  fault  therein,  though  very  liable  of  being  pleaded  as  here 
by  the  slothful  and  the  false-hearted,  and  ever  needing,  even  when  most  true,  to  be 
balanced  by  other  thoughts  concerning  God,  is  yet  in  itself  an  high  grace,  and  has  a 
word  of  its  own  to  express  it,  cuAu/Jcia,  from  cv  ^afiffdvciv,  those  divine  things  being  con- 
templated as  costly  yet  delicate  vessels,  which  must  needs  be  handled  with  extreme 
wariness  and  even  fear. 

*  The  <jK\np<>i  here  is  stronger  than  the  awrripos  of  Luke  xix.  21 ;  that  word  being 
sometimes  used  in  a  good  sense,  which  this  is  never ;  thus  Plutarch :  ^i>  adtppotv  Kal 
aiarnpos.  This  last  is  an  epithet  properly  applied  to  fruit  or  wine,  which  is  crude,  un. 
ripe,  sour,  wanting  in  mellowness,  and  would  find  its  opposite  in  ;^;p>;oTO{,  (Luke  v.  39,) 
so  the  Latin  austerus  continually,  which  is  opposed  to  the  dulcis.  But  (XK^npos  is  an 
epithet  given  to  a  surface  which  is  at  once  dry  and  hard,  as  through  drought,  involving 
alike  the  asper  and  the  durus,  and  is  opposed  to  jiaXaKos  and  vyp6;.  Nabal  is  aKk-npdi  xat 
^TovTjpos,  (1  Sam.  XXV.  3,  LXX.)  churlish  and  evil.  Terence  {Adelph.,  v.  4,)  unfolds 
the  cK\np6i,  when  he  describes  one  as  Tristis,  parous,  truculentus,  tenax.  The  words 
are  discriminated  in  Titmann's  Synonyms,  c.  10. 

t  "Strawed"  does  not  refer  to  the  strewing  of  the  seed,  for  then  he  would  but  be 
saying  the  same  thing  twice.  Rather  there  is  a  step  in  the  process  of  the  harvest, 
" Where  thou  hast  not  strawed"  or  better,  scattered  with  the  fan  on  the  barn  floor, 
there  expectest  thou  to  "  gather"  with  the  rake :  as  one  who  will  not  be  at  the  trouble 
to  purge  away  the  chaff,  yet  expects  to  gather  in  the  golden  grains  into  his  store. 
(Matt.  iii.  12.)  AitwopTTKraf,  the  word  here  used,  could  scarcely  be  applied  to  the 
measured  and  orderly  scattering  of  the  sower's  seeed.  It  is  rather  the  dispersing,  mak- 
ing to  fly  in  every  direction,  as  a  pursuer  the  routed  enemy,  (Luke  i.  51 ;  Acts  v.  37 ;) 
or  as  the  wolf  the  sheep,  (Matt.  xxvi.  31,)  or  as  the  Prodigal  his  goods,  (Luke  xv.  13  ; 
xvi.  1 ;)  or  as  here,  the  husbandman  the  chaflT.  Thus  rightly  Schott  on  this  ^icirKdpmaas : 
Notionem  ventilandi  frumentum  in  arefi  repositum  exprimit. 

X  Aquinas  asserts  well  the  true  doctrine,  which  this  servant  denies :  Deus  nihil 


220  THE  TALENTS. 

he  regards  the  work  as  something  outward — as  something  to  be  done 
for  God,  instead  of  being  a  work  to  be  wrought  in  him,  or  rather,  which 
he  would  work  in  and  through  his  servants.  He  thought  that  God  call- 
ed to  a  labour,  and  gave  no  ability  for  the  labour, — that  he  laid  on  a  task, 
which  was  a  mere  task,  and  put  no  joy  nor  consolation  into  the  hearts 
of  them  that  fulfilled  it :  no  wonder  then  that  he  should  shrink  from  it. 

V  Thus,  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  I  was  afraid  ;"*  he  justifies  the  caution  and 
timidity  which  he  had  shown,  and  how  it  was  that  he  would  attempt 
nothing  and  venture  upon  nothing  :  he  feared  to  trade  on  that  talent, 
lest  in  the  necessary  risks  of  business,  seeking  to  gain  other  he  might 
lose  that  one,  and  so  enrage  his  master  against  him  ;  even  as  men  might 

♦  profess  to  fear  to  lay  themselves  out  for  the  winning  of  other  souls,  lest, 
so  doing,  they  might  endanger  their  own, — "  Lo,  there  thou  hast  that  is 
thine."'\  Here  it  might  be  asked,  how  could  God's  gifts  be  hidden,  and 
yet  restored  to  him  entire ;  since  the  suffering  them  to  lie  idle  is 
in  fact  one  form  of  wasting  them  ?  In  reality  they  could  not  be  so  re- 
stored. It  is  only  that  men  imagine  they  can  be  given  back,  when  they 
suppose  that  keeping  the  negative  precepts  is  all  that  God  requires  of 
them,  and  that  doing  this  they  will  restore  to  him  his  gifts  entire,  as  they 
received  them.:}: 

requirit  ab  homine  nisi  boiium  quod  ipse  in  nobis  seminavit ;  and  Augustine,  putting 
the  same  truth  in  the  form  of  a  prayer :  Da  quod  jubes,  et  jube  quod  vis. 

*  Hilary  {Comm.  in  Matth.,  in  loc.)  has  a  remarkable  use  of  the  words  "  /  was 
afraid."  It  is,  he  says,  the  voice  of  them  that  choose  to  abide,  as  the  Jew,  in  the  law 
and  in  the  spirit  of  bondage,  shrinking  from  the  liberty  and  activity  of  Christian  ser- 
vice :  Timui  te,  tanquani  per  reverentiam  et  metum  veterum  praeceptorum  usu  Evan- 
gelicse  libertatis  abstineat. 

t  Cocceius :  Jactatio  superba  conservati  talenti  significat  fiduciam  et  securitatem 
ejus  quisibi  facile  satisfacit.  See  Stjicer's  Thes.  s.  v.  TaXavrov. 

t  There  is  an  instructive  Eastern  tale,  which  in  its  deeper  meaning  runs  remarka- 
bly parallel  to  this  parable.     It  is  as  follows : 

There  went  a  man  from  home  :  and  to  his  neighbours  twaia 
He  gave,  to  keep  for  him,  two  sacks  of  golden  grain. 
Deep  in  his  cellar  one  the  precious  charge  concealed  ; 
And  forth  the  other  went,  and  strewed  it  in  his  field. 
The  man  returns  at  last — asks  of  the  first  his  sack  : 
"  Here  take  it ;  'tis  the  same  ;  thou  hast  it  safely  back." 
Unharmed  it  shows  without ;  but  when  he  would  explore" 
His  sack's  recesses,  corn  there  finds  he  now  no  more  : 
One  half  of  what  was  there  proves  rotten  and  decayed. 
Upon  the  other  half  have  worm  and  mildew  preyed. 
The  putrid  heap  to  him  in  ire  he  doth  return, 
gH        Then  of  the  other  asks,  "  Where  is  my  sack  of  corn  ?" 

Who  answered,"  Come  with  me  and  see  how  it  has  sped" — 
And  took  and  showed  him  fields  with  waving  harvests  spread. 


THE  TALENTS.  221 

But  his  lord  answers  him  on  his  own  grounds,  and  making  his  own 
mouth  condemn  him  ;  (Job.  xv.  6  ;  2  Sam.  i.  16  ;)  nor  does  he  take  the 
trouble  to  dispute  or  deny  the  truth  of  the  character  which  his  servant 
had  given  him: — "Thou  wicked  and  slothful  servant ;"'' wicked,"  in 
that  he  defended  himself  by  calumniating  his  lord,  and  "  slothful,''  as 
his  whole  conduct  has  shown,  "  ihou  knewest  that  I  reap  where  I  sow- 
ed not,  and  gather  where  I  had  not  strawed  ; — that  is,  Be  it  so,  grant 
me  to  be  such  as  thou  describest,  severe  and  exacting,  yet  even  then 
thou  art  not  cleared,  for  thou  oughtest  to  have  done  me  justice  still ; 
and  there  was  a  safe  way,  by  which  thou  mightest  have  done  this, 
with  little  or  no  peril  to  thyself  j  and  thereby  have  obtained  for  me,  if 
not  the  large  gains,  which  were  possible  through  some  bolder  course, 
yet  something,  some  small  but  certain  return  for  my  monies ; — Thou 
oughtest,  therefore,  to  have  put  my  money  to  the  exchangers,  and  then  at 
my  coming  I  should  have  received  mine  own  with  usury."*  This  putting 
the  money  to  the  exchangers,  Olshausen  ingeniously  explains  :  "  Those 
timid  natures  which  are  not  suited  to  independent  labour  in  the  king- 
dom of  God,  are  here  counselled  at  least  to  attach  themselves  to  other 
stronger  characters,  under  whose  leading  they  may  lay  out  their  gifts 
to  the  service  of  the  Church. "f      This  explanation  has  the  advantage 


Then  cheerfully  the  man  laughed  out  and  cried,  "  This  one 
Had  insight,  to  make  up  for  the  other  that  had  none. 
The  letter  he  observed,  but  thou  the  precept's  sense, 
And  thus  to  thee  and  me  shall  profit  grow  from  hence  ; 
In  harvest  thou  shall  fill  two  sacks  of  corn  for  me, 
The  residue  of  right  remains  in  full  for  thee." 
*  EOi/  rd/cM,  with  increase.     So  fenus  is  explained  by  Varro,  a  fetu  et  quasi  a  felura 
quadam  pecuniae  parientis  atque  increscentis.     To  estimate  how  great  the  master's 
gains  even  in  this  way  might  have  been,  we  must  keep  in  mind  the  high  rates  of  inte- 
rest paid  in  antiquity.     See  the  Diet,  of  Gr.  and  Eom.  Antt.,  s.  v.  Interest  of  Money, 
p.  523  ;  and  see  also  the  lively  chapter  in  Becker's  Charikles,  v.  1,  p.  237,  for  a  graphic 
description  of  the  TfiairE^Trai,  the  bankers  of  antiquity. 

t  Cajetan  has  nearly  the  same  explanation  :  Intendit  per  hoc,  quod  si  non  ausus 
fuit  uti  dono  Dei  in  actionibus  multi  periculi,  uti  tamen  debuit  illo,  in  actionibus  in  qui- 
bus  est  lucrum  cum  parvo  periculo.  Teelman  {Comm.  in  Luc.  xvi.)  has  a  curious  ex- 
planation of  this  giving  the  money  to  the  Tpairci^Xrai,  starting  from  the  notion  that  the 
business  of  these  money-changers  was  in  itself  and  necessarily  unfair  ;  "  If  you  thought 
me  this  unfair  man,  why  were  you  not  consistent? — why  did  you  not  seek  for  me  the 
gains  which  you  must  then  have  supposed  would  have  been  welcome  to  me  1"  not 
saying  this  as  though  he  would  have  had  him  so  to  have  done,  but  only  convicting 
him  of  conduct  inconsistent  with  his  own  assertions. — It  is  an  interesting  question, 
whether  the  saying  so  often  quoted  in  the  early  Church  as  our  Lord's,  and  not  any 
where  to  be  found  in  the  New  Testament,  VivtaOt  66Ktiioi  (orKoAoi,  or  ^pdvi/^oi)  rpaircC^lTai, 
has  its  origin  here.     Many  have  thought  they  found  it  in  this  passage,  but  it  is  difficult 


222  THE  TALENTS. 

that  it  makes  these  words  not  merely  useful  to  add  vivacity  to  the  nar- 
rative, as  the  natural  exclamation  of  an  offended  master, — but  gives 
them  likewise  a  spiritual  significance,  which  is  not  generally  sought  in 
them,  but  which,  if  they  yield  it  easily  and  naturally,  must  by  no 
means  be  rejected.  Certainly  this  meaning  is  better  than  that  which 
Jerome  proposes,  that  the  money-changers  are  believers  in  general,  to 
whom  the  intrusted  word  of  grace  should  have  been  committed,  that 
they,  trying  it,  and  rejecting  any  erroneous  doctrine  which  might  be 
admingled  with  it,  but  holding  fast  what  was  good,  might  be  enriched 
with  the  knowledge  of  God.  Such  can  hardly  be  the  meaning,  for  that 
is  the  very  thing  which  the  servant  ought  to  have  done  in  the  first  in- 
stance, boldly  to  have  laid  out  his  gift  for  the  profit  and  edification  of  his 
brethren  ;  while  this  of  committing  the  talent  to  the  money-changers  is 
only  the  alternative  proposed  to  him,  in  case  he  liad  shrunk  from  that 
other  and  more  excellent  way. 

And  hereupon,  his  doom  who  neither  in  one  way  or  the  other  had 
sought  his  master's  interests,  is  pronounced  ;  it  consists  first,  in  the  loss 
of  the  talent  which  he  had  suffered  to  lie  idle, — "  Take,  therefore,  the 
talent  from  him."*  We  have  here  a  limitation  of  Rom.  xi.  29.  This 
deprivation  may  be  considered  partly  as  the  directly  penal,  and  partly 
as  the  natural  consequence  of  his  sloth.  For  there  is  this  analogy  be- 
tween the  course  of  things  in  the  natural  and  in  the  spiritual  world,  that 
as  a  limb  which  is  never  called  into  exercise  loses  its  strength  by  de- 

to  see  on  what  ground,  except  that  the  word  Tpairs^iTai  here  occurs.  The  point  of  that 
exhortation  is  evidently  this:  Be  as  experienced  money-changers,  who  readily  distin- 
guish the  good  from  the  bad  coin,  receiving  the  one  but  rejecting  the  other.  Now  in 
this  parable,  there  is  no  direct  or  indirect  comparison  of  the  disciples  with  money- 
changers, and  such  an  exhortation  lies  wholly  aloof  from  its  aim  and  scope.  The 
words  can  as  little  be  said  so  be  implicitly  contained  in  the  parable,  as  they  can  to  be 
plainly  read  in  the  text,  though  it  is  true  that  Suicer  (Thes.,  s.  v.  Tpa-nt^irris,)  defends 
this  view.  The  precept  would  be  much  more  easily  deduced  from  1  Thess.  v.  21, 
22  ;  even  as  we  find  yiv,  66k.  rparr.  sometimes  called  an  apostolic  saying,  attributed  by 
many  of  the  Fathers  not  to  the  Lord  but  to  one  of  his  apostles,  or  to  St.  Paul  by  name, 
and  by  some,  indeed,  even  inserted  before  this  very  passage, — for  examples,  see  Suicer  ; 
and  the  whole  question  is  thoroughly  discussed  by  Hansel,  in  the  Theol.  Stud,  und 
Krit-,  for  183G,  p.  179.  He  maintains  this  latter  origin  of  the  words.  See  also  Co- 
TELERii  Fait.  Apostol.,\.  1,  p.  249,  and  the  Annott.  in  iJusei.,  Oxford,  1842,  v.  1, 
p.  930. — There  being  mention  of  interest  here,  TpaTrt^ir/jj  is  the  fitter  word  than  koWv 
fftarfii,  which,  however,  rightly  finds  place.  Matt.  xxi.  12  ;  Mark  xi.  15.  Jerome 
(Comm.  in  Matth.  xxi.  12,  13,)  has  a  singular,  but  erroneous  derivation  of  the  last 
word. 

*  Augustine  asks  here  {Enarr.  in  Fs.  xxxviii.  4) :  Quid  exspectare  debent,  qui 
cum  luxuria  consumscrunt,  si  damnatur  qui  cum  pigritiii  sewaverunt?  And  again, 
Intelligatur  poena  interversoris  ex  pccna  pigri. 


THE  TALENTS.  223 

grees — its  muscles  and  sinews  disappear, — even  so  the  gifts  of  God,  un- 
exercised, fade  and  fail  from  us  :  "  From  him  that  hath  not  shall  he  taken 
away  even  that  lohich  he  hath."*  And  on  the  other  contrary,  as  the  limb 
is  not  wasted  by  strenuous  exertion,  but  rather  by  it  nerved  and 
strengthened,  not  otherwise  is  it  also  with  the  gifts  of  God ;  they  are 
multiplied  by  being  laid  out :  "  Unto  every  one  that  hath  shall  be  given, 
and  he  shall  have  abundance."  "  The  earth  which  bringeth  forth  herbs 
meet  for  them  by  whom  it  is  dressed,  receiveth  blessing,"  that  is,  a  far- 
ther blessing,  the  gift  of  a  continued  fruitfulness  "  from  God."  (Heb. 
vi.  7.)  Nor  is  it  merely  that  the  one  receives  more,  and  the  other  loses 
what  he  had ;  but  that  very  gift  which  the  one  loses  the  other  receives  ; 
he  is  enriched  with  a  talent  taken  from  the  other ;  while  on  his  part, 
another  takes  his  crown.  We  see  this  continually ;  one  by  the  Provi- 
dence of  God  steps  into  the  place  and  the  opportunities  which  another 
left  unused,  and  so  has  forfeited.     (1  Sam.  xv.  28.) 

For  this  taking  away  of  the  unused  talent  which  will  find  its  com- 
plete consummation  at  the  day  of  judgment,  yet  is  also  in  this  present 
time  continually  going  forward.  And  herein  is  mercy,  that  it  is  not 
done  all  at  once,  but  by  little  and  little,  so  that  till  all  is  withdrawn, 
there  is  still  the  opportunity  of  recovering  all :  at  each  successive  with- 
drawal, there  is  some  warning  to  hold  fast  what  still  is  left,  "  to  strength- 
en the  things  which  remain  that  are  ready  to  die."    It  is  quite  true  that 

^Chrysostom  (De  Christ.  Free,  Con.  Anom.,  10)  has  two  other  comparisons,  to 
set  forth  that  the  grace  unused  will  quickly  depart:  "  For  as  the  corn,  if  it  be  let  lie 
for  ever  in  the  barns,  is  consumed,  being  devoured  of  the  worm  ;  but  if  it  is  brought 
forth  and  cast  into  the  field,  is  multiplied  and  renewed  again :  so  also  the  spiritual 
word,  if  it  be  evermore  shut  up  within  the  soul,  being  consumed  and  eaten  into  by 
envy  and  sloth,  and  decay,  is  quickly  extinguished  ;  but,  if,  as  on  a  fertile  field,  it  is 
scattered  on  the  souls  of  the  brethren,  the  treasure  is  multiplied  to  them  that  receive 
it,  and  to  him  that  possessed  it  ; — and  as  a  fountain  from  which  water  is  continually 
drawn  forth,  is  thereby  rather  purified,  and  bubbles  up  the  more  ;  but  being  stanched 
fails  altogether,  so  the  spiritual  gift  and  word  of  doctrine,  if  it  be  continually  drawn 
forth,  and  if  who  will  has  liberty  to  share  it,  rises  up  the  more ;  but  if  restrained 
by  envy  and  a  grudging  spirit,  diminishes,  and  at  last  perishes  altogether." — Augustine 
too,  (or  Caesarius,  as  the  Benedictine  editors  affirm,  August.  0pp.,  v.  5,  p.  81,  Ap- 
pendix) has  an  admirable  discourse  on  the  manner  in  which  gifts  multiply  through 
being  imparted,  and  diminish  through  being  withholden.  It  is  throughout  an  appli- 
cation of  the  story  of  the  widow  (2  Kin.  iv.)  whose  two  sons  Elisha  redeemed  from 
bondage,  by  multiplying  the  oil  which  she  had  in  her  single  vessel  so  long  as  she  pro- 
vided other  vessels  into  which  to  pour  it,  but  which,  when  she  had  no  more,  at  once 
stopped: — et  ait  Scriptura  stetisse  oleum,  posteaquam  ubi  poneret,  non  invenit.  Sic, 
dilectissimi  fratres,  tandiu  caritas  augetur  quandiu  tribuitur.  Et  ideo  etiam  ex  indus- 
tria  debemus  vasa  quajrere,  ubi  oleum  possumus  infundere,  quia  probavimus  quod  dum 
aliis  infundimus,  plus  habemus.     Vasa  carl  talis,  homines  sunt. 


224  THE  TALENTS. 

at  each  successive  stage  of  the  decline,  the  efFort  required  for  this  is 
greater, — the  strength  for  it  less  :  but  to  complain  of  this,  is  to  complain 
that  sin  is  sin,  that  it  has  any  curse  with  it ;  and  however  this  is  the 
mournful  truth,  yet,  at  the  same  lime,  it  remains  always  possible,  till 
the  last  spark  is  extinguished,  to  blow  up  that  spark  again  into  a  flame : 
even  the  sense  of  the  increasing  darkness  may  be  that  which  shall 
arouse  the  man  to  a  serious  sense  of  his  danger,  and  to  the  need  of  an 
earnest  revival  of  God's  work  in  his  soul.  But  this  servant  had  never 
awoke  to  the  sense  of  his  danger  till  it  was  too  late, — till  all  was  irrevo- 
cably lost ;  and  now  it  is  said,  not  merely  that  he  shall  forfeit  his  talent, 
but  yet  further,  "  Cast  ye  the  unprofitable  servant  into  outer  darkness  : 
there  shall  be  wailing  and  gnashing  of  teeth.  ^'  While  there  is  light  and 
joy  and  feasting  within,  to  celebrate  the  master's  return,  the  darkness 
without  shall  be  his  portion. 

The  comparison  of  the  causes  which  led  to  this  servant's  exclusion, 
and  those  which  led  to  the  exclusion  of  the  foolish  virgins,  is  full  of  im- 
portant instruction  for  all ;  the  virgins  erred  through  a  vain  over-confi- 
dence, this  servant  through  an  under-confidence  that  was  equally  vain 
and  sinful.  They  were  overbold,  he  was  not  bold  enough.  Thus,  as 
in  a  chart,  the  two  temptations,  as  regards  our  relation  to  God  and  his 
service, — the  two  opposing  rocks  on  which  faith  is  in  danger  of  making 
shipwreck,  are  laid  down  for  us,  that  we  may  avoid  them  both.  Those 
virgins  thought  it  too  easy  a  thing  to  serve  the  Lord, — this  servant 
thought  it  too  hard ;  — they  esteemed  it  but  as  the  going  forth  to  a  ^sti- 
val  which  should  presently  begin,  he  as  an  hard,  dreary,  insupportable 
work  for  a  thankless  master.  In  them,  we  have  the  perils  that  beset  the 
sanguine,  in  him  the  melancholic,  complexion.  They  were  representa- 
tives of  a  class  needing  such  warnings  as  this :  "  Strait  is  the  gate,  and 
narrow  is  the  way,  that  leadeth  unto  life,  and  few  there  be  that  find  it  j" 
(Matt.  vii.  14  ;)  "  Work  out  your  own  salvation  with  fear  and  trem- 
bling ;"  (Phil.  ii.  12  ;)  "  If  any  man  will  come  after  me,  let  him  deny 
himself."  (Matt.  xvi.  24.)  He  was  representative  of  a  class  that  would 
need  to  be  reminded  :  "  Ye  have  not  received  the  spirit  of  bondage  again 
to  fear;"  (Rom.  viii.  15;)  "Ye  are  not  come  unto  the  mount  that 
might  be  touched,  and  that  burned  with  fire,  nor  unto  blackness,  and 

darkness,  and  tempest ; but  ye  are  come  unto  Mount  Zion,  and 

unto  the  city  of  the  living  God, and  to  Jesus,  the  Mediator  of  the 

new  Covenant,  and  to  tlie  blood  of  sprinkling,  that  speaketh  better 
things  than  that  of  Abel."    (Ileb.  xii.  18,  22,  24.) 


THE  SEED  GROWING  SECRETLY.  225 


PARAELE  XV. 


THE    SEED    GROWING    SECRETLY. 

Mark  iv.  26-29. 

This  is  the  only  parable  which  is  peculiar  to  St.  Mark.  Like  that  of 
the  Leaven,  of  which  it  seems  to  occupy  the  place,  it  declares  the  secret 
invisible  energy  of  the  divine  word, — that  it  has  life  in  itself,  and  will 
unfold  itself  according  to  the  law  of  its  own  being  ;  and  besides  what  it 
has  in  common  with  that  parable,  declares  further,  that  this  word  of  the 
kingdom  has  that  in  it  which  will  allow  it  safely  to  be  left  to  itself. 
The  main  difficulty  in  the  parable  is  the  following  :  Whom  shall  we 
understand  by  the  man  casting  seed  in  the  ground  ? — is  it  the  Son  of 
man  himself,  or  those  who  in  subordination  to  him  declare  the  Gospel 
of  the  kingdom  ?  There  are  embarrassments  attending  either  explana- 
tion. If  we  say  that  the  Lord  points  to  himself  as  the  sower  of  the  seed, 
how  then  shall  we  explain  ver.  27  ? — it  cannot  be  said  of  him  that  he 
knows  not  how  *  the  seed  sown  in  the  hearts  of  his  people  springs  and 
grows  up  ;  since  it  is  only  his  continual  presence  by  his  Spirit  in  their 
hearts  which  causes  it  to  grow  at  all.  Neither  can  he  fitly  be  compared 
to  a  sower  who,  having  scattered  his  seed,  goes  his  way  and  occupies 
himself  in  other  business,  feeling  that  it  lies  henceforth  beyond  the  sphere 
of  his  power  to  further  the  prosperity  of  the  seed,  but  that  it  must  be  left 
to  itself,  and  its  own  indwelling  powers,  and  that  his  part  will  not  begin 
again  till  the  time  of  the  harvest  has  come  round.  This  is  no  fit  descrip- 
tion of  him,  who  is  not  merely  the  author  and  finisher  of  our  faith,  but 
who  also  conducts  it  through  all  its  intermediate  stages :  and  without 
whose  blessing  and  active  co-operation  it  would  be  totally  unable  to 
make  any,  even  the  slightest,  progress.  Or  on  the  other  hand,  shall  we 
say  that  the  sower  of  the  seed  is  here  one  of  the  inferior  ministers  and 
messengers  of  the  truth,  and  that  the  purpose  of  the  parable  is  to  teach 
such,  that  after  the  word  of  life,  of  which  they  are  bearers,  has  found 
place  in  any  heart,  they  may  be  of  good  confidence,  trusting  to  its  own 

*  It  is  a  poor  way  to  get  out  of  this  difficulty  to  say  with  Erasmus,  that,"  he  know- 
eth  not  how,"  ought  rather  to  be,  "  it  knoweth  not  how," — that  is,  the  seed  knoweth 
not  how  it  grows  itself;  since,  as  no  one  could  have  supposed  that  it  did,  who  would 
think  of  denying  it  1 


226  THE  SEED  GROWING  SECRETLY.* 

powers  to  unfold  itself,  for  it  has  a  life  of  its  own, — a  life  independent  of 
him  who  may  have  been  the  original  instrument  for  the  communication 
of  that  life,  even  as  a  child,  after  it  is  born,  has  a  life  no  longer  depend- 
ent on  that  of  the  parents,  from  which  yet  it  was  originally  derived  ? 
But  then,  with  this  explanation,  there  is  another  and  not  slighter  difficul- 
ty ;  for  at  ver.  29  it  is  said,  "  when  the  fruit  is  hr  ought  forth,  imviediately 
he  "  (the  same  person  clearly  who  sowed  the  seed)  '^  putteth  in  the  sickle, 
because  the  harvest  is  come."  Of  whom  can  it  be  said,  save  of  the  Son 
of -man,  the  Lord  of  the  harvest,  that  he  putteth  in  the  sickle, — that  he 
gathereth  his  people,  when  they  are  ripe  for  glory, — when  they  have 
finished  their  course, — when  the  work  of  faith  has  been  accomplished  in 
their  hearts, — into  everlasting  habitations  ?  So  that  the  perplexity  is  this, 
— If  we  say  that  the  Lord  means  himself  by  the  principal  personage  in 
the  parable,  then  something  is  attributed  to  him  which  seems  unworthy 
of  him,  less  than  to  him  rightly  appertains ;  while  if,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  take  him  to  mean  those  that,  in  subordination  to  himself,  are  bearers 
of  his  word,  then  something  more,  an  higher  prerogative,  as  it  would 
seem,  is  attributed,  than  can  be  admitted  to  belong  rightly  to  any,  save 
only  to  him.*  I  cannot  see  any  perfectly  satisfactory  way  of  escape 
from  this  perplexity.  It  will  hardly  do  to  say,  for  the  purpose  of  evading 
the  embarrassments  which  beset  the  first  explanation,  that  the  circum- 
stances mentioned  at  ver.  27,  are  not  to  be  pressed,  and  that  they  belong, 
not  to  the  body  itself,  but  only  to  the  drapery,  of  the  parable ;  for  clear- 
ly there, — in  the  sower  absenting  himself  after  he  has  committed  the 
seed  to  the  ground,  and  in  its  growing  without  him, — is  the  very  point 
and  moral  of  the  whole,  and  to  strike  out  that,  would  be  as  the  striking 
out  of  its  right  eye,  leaving  it  altogether  dark. 

Not  admitting  then  this  too  convenient  explanation,  I  will  yet  take 
the  parable  as  having  reference  in  the  first  place,  though  not  exclusively, 
to  the  Lord  himself,  the  greiit  Sower  of  the  seed,  and  it  will  then  remain 
to  see  how  far  the  acknowledged  difficulties  are  capable  of  being  remov- 
ed or  mitigated.  It  commences  thus  : — "  So  is  the  kingdom  of  God,  as 
if  a  man  should  cast  seed  into  the  ground,  and  should  sleep,  and  rise  night 
and  day.'^  By  these  last  words  it  is  agreed  among  interpreters, — old 
and  new,  almost  without  exception, — that  is  signified  not  his  carefulness 
after  having  sown  the  seed,  but  his  absence  of  such  an  after-careful- 
ness :*  he  does  not  think  it  necessary  to  keep  watch  over  his  seed  after 


*  It  would  be  unjust  to  deprive  Strauss  (Leben  Jesu,  v.  1,  p.  GG4)  of  the  glory  of 
his  theory  concerning  this  parable, — namely,  that  it  is  another  and  imperfect  version 
of  that  of  the  Tares,  only  with  the  circumstance  of  the  tares  left  out  ! 

t  So  Pole  {Synops.,  in  loc.)  in  a  passage  woven  out  of  several  conmmentators : 


THE  SEED  GROWING  SECRETLY.  227 

it  has  been  cast  on  the  ground,  but  he  sleeps  securely  by  night,  and  by 
day  he  rises  and  goes  about  his  ordinary  business,  leaving  with  full  con- 
fidence  the  seed  to  itself;  which  meanwhile  "  should  spring  and  grow 
up,  he  knoweth  not  how.'"  These  words  have  no  difficulty, — on  the  con- 
trary, are  full  of  most  important  instruction, — so  long  as  we  apply  them, 
as  no  doubt  we  fairly  may,  to  those  who  under  Christ  are  teachers  in 
his  Church.  They  are  here  implicitly  bidden  to  have  faith  in  the  word 
which  they  preach, — in  the  seed  which  they  sow,  for  it  is  the  seed  of 
God  ;  when  it  has  found  place  in  an  heart,  they  are  not  to  be  tormented 
with  anxiety  concerning  the  final  issue,  but  rather  to  have  confidence  in 
its  indwelling  power  and  might,*  not  supposing  that  it  is  they  who  are 
to  keep  it  alive,  and  that  it  can  only  live  through  them  ;  for  this  of  main- 
taining its  life  is  God's  part  and  not  theirs,  and  he  undertakes  to  fulfil 
it.  They  are  instructed  also  to  rest  satisfied  that  the  seed  should  grow 
and  spring  up  without  their  knowing  exactly  how  :  let  them  not  be 
searching  at  its  roots  to  see  how  they  have  stricken  into  the  soil,  nor  seek 
prematurely  to  anticipate  the  shooting  of  the  blade,  or  the  forming  of  the 
corn  in  the  ear  ; — for  the  mystery  of  the  life  of  God  in  any  and  in  every 
heart  is  unfathomable, — any  attempt  to  determine  that  its  course  shall 
be  this  way,  or  shall  be  that  way,  is  only  mischievous.  It  has  a  law, 
indeed,  for  its  orderly  development,  ^'Jirst  the  Made,  then  the  ear,  then 
the  full  corn  in  the  ear,''  but  that  law  is  hidden  ;  and  as  manifold  as  are 
the  works  of  God  in  nature,  so  that  they  never  exactly  repeat  themselves, 
so  manifold  also  are  they  in  grace.  Therefore  let  the  messengers  of  the 
Gospel  be  content  that  the  divine  word  should  grow  in  a  mysterious  man- 
ner, and  one  of  which  the  processes  are  hidden  from  them,  and  believing 
that  it  is  a  Divine  power  and  not  a  human,  let  them  be  of  good  courage 
concerning  the  issue,  and  having  sown  the  seed,  commit  the  rest  to  God 
in  faith,  being  confident  that  he  will  bring  his  own  work  to  perfection. 

Semente  facta  transigit  securus  noctes  et  dies,  segetem  Deo  committens,  nee  dubitans 
quin  germinet,  ipse  agens  alia  vitae  munia.  The  only  interpreter  that  I  know,  who 
takes  an  opposite  view,  is  Theophylact,  who  understrnds  the  rising  night  and  day  to 
mark  the  continual  watchfulness  of  Christ  over  his  Church.  But  what  then  will  the 
sleeping  mean  ?  and,  moreover,  this  explanation  goes  directly  contrary  to  the  whole 
aim  and  purpose  of  the  parable. 

*  Calvin  brings  forward  this  side  of  the  truth,  though  an  important  one,  yet  too 
exclusively,  when  he  thus  explains  the  parable  :  Sermonem  ad  verbi  ministros  dirigit, 
ne  frigidius  muneri  suo  incumbant  quia  non  statim  laboris  fructus  apparet.  Ergo  i!lis 
agricolas  ad  imitandum  proponit,  qui  sub  spe  metendi  semen  in  terram  projiciuntj 
neque  anxia  inquietudine  torquentur,  sed  eunt  cubitum  et  surgunt,  hoc  est,  pro  more 
intenti  sunt  quotidiano  labori,  et  se  nocturna  quiete  reficiunt,  donee  tandem  suo  tem- 
pore matureseat  seges.  Ergo  quamvis  verbi  semen  ad  tempus  sufTocatum  lateat,  jubet 
tamen  Christus  bono  animo  esse  pios  doctores,  ne  diffidentia  illis  alacritatem  minuat. 


228  THE  SEED  GROWING  SECRETLY. 

Of  course  this  is  not  meant  as  though  they  are  not  to  follow  up  the  work 
which  has  been  through  their  instrumentality  commenced.  For,  as  when 
it  is  said  "  the  earth  hringeih  forth  fruit  of  herself ,''  this  does  not  exclude 
the  rain,  and  sun,  and  all  other  favorable  influences,  so  neither,  when 
we  say  that  the  seed  of  God  implanted  in  any  heart  has  life  of  its  own, 
is  it  hereby  implied  that  it  will  not  require  the  nourishment  suitable  for 
it, — nay,  rather  it  is  affirmed  that  it  will  require  it ;  were  it  a  dead  thing 
it  would  require  nothing  of  the  kind,  but  because  it  is  living,  it  has  need 
of  that  whereon  it  may  feed.  But  then  it  is  a  different  thing  to  impart 
life,  and  to  impart  the  sustenance  for  life  :  this  latter  the  Church  has  still 
to  do  for  her  children,  but  then  it  is  in  faith  that  they  have  a  life  of  their 
own  once  given,  and  continually  maintained  from  on  high,  by  which 
they  can  assimilate  to  themselves  this  spiritual  food  provided  for  them, 
and  draw  nutriment  from  it. 

But  it  still  remains  to  consider,  in  what  sense  that  which  is  said  of 
leaving  the  seed  to  itself  can  be  affirmed  of  Christ.  Olshausen  suggests 
this  explanation  of  the  difficulties  above  noted.  It  is  true,  he  says,  that 
the  inner  spiritual  life  of  men  is  never  in  any  stage  of  its  development 
without  the  care  and  watchfulness  of  the  Lord  who  first  communicated 
that  life  :  yet  are  there  two  moments  when  he  may  be  said  especially  to 
visit  the  soul ;  at  the  beginning  of  the  spiritual  life,  which  is  the  seed- 
time, and  again  when  he  takes  his  people  to  himself,  which  is  their  time 
of  harvest.*  Between  these  times,  lies  a  period  in  which  the  work  of 
the  Lord  is  going  forward  without  any  such  manifest  interpositions  on 
his  part — not  indeed  without  the  daily  supply  of  his  Spirit,  and  the  daily 
ordering  of  his  providence,  but  so  as  that  he  does  not  put  to  his  hand  so 
plainly  and  immediately  as  at  those  two  cardinal  moments.  And  the 
difficulty  will  be  slighter  when  we  make  application  of  the  parable, — as 
undoubtedly  we  are  bound  to  do, — to  the  growth  and  progress  of  the  uni- 
versal Church,  and  not  only  to  that  of  the  individual  soul.  The  Lord 
at  his  first  coming  in  the  flesh  sowed  the  word  of  the  kingdom  in  the 
world,  planted  a  Church  therein,  which  having  done  he  withdrew  him- 


*  We  may  compare  Job  v.  26  :  "  Thou  shalt  come  to  thy  grave  in  a  full  age,  like 
as  a  shock  of  corn  cometh  in  in  his  season."  There,  however,  it  is  rather  said,  that  the 
favoured  of  God  shall  not  die  till  they  have  known  the  fulness  of  earthly  blessing,  till 
they  have  reached  Abraham's  "  good  old  age,"  and  (if  one  may  use  the  image  not  offen- 
sively,) retire  as  satisfied  guests  from  life's  feast.  But  in  our  parable,  consistently  with 
the  higher  dispensation  which  looks  to  higher  blessings,  it  is  rather  affirmed,  that  the 
faithful  are  not  taken  away  while  yet  the  work  of  grace  is  incomplete  in  them,  while 
yet  Christ  is  not  fully  formed  in  them,  that  in  this  respect  there  is  a  provident  love 
ordering  their  death  as  well  as  their  life,  that  it  is  only  "  when  the  fruit  is  brought 
forth,"  that  Christ  "  putteth  in  the  sickle.'' 


THE  SEED  GROWING  SECRETLY.  229 

self ;  the  heavens  received  him  till  the  time  of  the  consummation  of  all 
things.  Many  and  many  a  time  since  then  the  cry  has  ascended  in  his 
ears,  "  O  that  thou  wouldest  rend  the  heavens,  that  thou  wouldest  come 
down  !" — often  it  has  seemed  to  man  as  though  the  hour  of  interference 
had  arrived,  as  though  his  Church  were  at  its  last  gasp,  at  the  point  to 
die,  as  though  its  enemies  were  about  to  prevail  against  it,  and  to  extin- 
guish it  for  ever,  unless  he  appeared  for  its  deliverance.  Yet  he  has  not 
come  forth,  he  has  left  it  to  surmount  its  obstacles,  not  indeed  without 
his  mighty  help,  but  without  his  visible  interference.  He  has  left  the 
divine  seed,  the  plant  which  he  has  planted,  to  grow  on  by  night  and  by 
day,  through  storm  and  through  sunshine,  increasing  secretly  with  the 
increase  of  God  ;  and  will  let  it  so  continue,  till  it  has  borne  and  brought 
to  maturity  all  its  appointed  fruit.  And  only  then,  when  the  harvest  of 
the  world  is  ripe,  when  the  number  of  his  elect  people  is  accomplished, 
will  he  again  the  second  time  appear  unto  salvation,  thrusting  in  his 
sickle,  and  reaping  the  earth,  and  gathering  the  wheat  into  his  barns.* 
The  convenience  of  interpreting  the  parable  altogether,  and  taking  it 
in  its  whole  object  and  aim  at  a  single,  view,  has  caused  one  or  two  less 
important  circumstances  to  be  passed  over,  which  yet  it  might  be  well 
not  to  leave  quite  without  notice.  When  it  is  said  that  "  the  earth  hring- 
eth  forth  fruit  of  herself  "  it  may  excite  surprise  that  it  is  not  rather  said, 
— The  seed  groweth  and  springeth  up  of  itself;  for  that,  strictly  speak- 
ing, is  the  doctrine  which  the  Lord  is  now  teaching  :  and  if  the  earth  be 
here,  as  it  must  be,  the  heart  of  man,  it  is  not  there,  but  in  the  word  of 
God  which  is  sown  there,  that  the  living  power  resides.  But  the  Lord's 
object,  in  using  the  expression,!  is  pointedly  to  exclude  the  agency  of  the 
sower,  at  least  a  continuous  agency  on  his  part  of  the  same  kind  as  he 
exercises  at  the  first,  and  this  done  he  is  not  careful  for  more. — The 
three  stages  of  spiritual  growth  implied  in  "  the  blade,"  "the  ear,"  and 

*  Grotius :  Sensus  mihi  videtur  esse  perspicuus  :  Christum  a  facta  semente  ad 
messis  lempus  agro  aspectabiliter  non  adfuturum. 

t  AvTOjiarr).  The  Word,  derived  from  airoj,  and  the  obsolete  ^^acj,  desidero,  is  one 
of  singular  fitness  and  beauty.  Elsewhere  it  occurs  but  once  in  the  New  Testament. 
(Acts  xii.  10.  Cf  Josh.  vi.  5,  LXX.)  It  is  often  used  by  classic  authors  to  describe 
the  spontaneous  bringing  forth  of  the  earth  in  the  golden  age,  during  the  paradisaical 
state  anterior  to  the  change  marked  Gen.  iii.  17.  Yet  here  it  is  not  exactly  correct  to 
make,  as  has  been  done,  the  avTOjuaTn  yi?  =  dKanaros  yij  of  Sophocles,  Antig.,  339;  for 
leaving  out  of  account  that  that  does  mean  the  earth  which  brings  forth  without  labour, 
but,  which  is  never  weary  of  bringing  forth,  it  besides  is  not  the  notion  of  previous 
labour  bestowed  on  the  soil  which  is  here  excluded — but  of  ulterior  carefulness.  In 
the  next  verse,  iavrdv  must  be  supplied  after  TrapaSw.  Virgil  will  then  have  exactly  the 
same  idiom : 

Multa  adeo  gelida  melius  se  nocte  dederunt. 


230  THE  TWO  DEBTORS. 

"  the  full  corn  in  the  ear,"  suggest  a  comparison  of  this  passage  with  such 
as  1  John  ii.  12-14,  where  the  apostle  in  like  manner  divides  the  faithful 
into  "  little  children,"  "  young  men,"  and  "  fathers,"  evidently  accord- 
ing to  the  different  degrees  of  progress  which  they  have  made  in  the  spi- 
ritua  llife. — With  ver.  29  we  may  compare  Rev.  xiv.  14,  15 ;  and  the 
comparison  supplies  an  additional  reason  why  we  should  not  rest  satis- 
fied with  the  application  of  the  parable  to  any  less  than  the  Son  of  man 
himself, — "  And  I  looked,  and  behold  a  white  cloud,  and  upon  the  cloud 
one  sat,  like  unto  the  Son  of  man,  having  on  his  head  a  golden  crown, 
and  in  his  hand  a  sharp  sickle.  And  another  angel  came  out  of  the 
temple,  crying  with  a  loud  voice  to  him  that  sat  on  the  cloud.  Thrust  * 
in  thy  sickle  and  reap :  for  the  time  is  come  for  thee  to  reap ;  for  the 
harvest  of  the  earth  is  ripe" — and  the  entire  parable  gives  the  same  en- 
couragement which  St.  Peter  means  to  give,  when  he  addresses  the 
faithful  in  Christ  Jesus,  as  "  being  born  again  not  of  corruptible  seed, 
but  of  incorruptible,  by  the  word  of  God  which  liveth  and  abideth  for 
ever,"  and  that  whole  passage  (1  PeL  i.  23-25)  supplies  a  parallel  than 
which  no  apter  could  be  found  in  the  entire  circle  of  Scripture  for  the 
parable  which  we  have  been  now  considering. 


PARABLE  XVI. 


THE    TWO    DEBTORS. 

Luke  vii.  41-43. 

We  may  affirm  with  tolerable  certainty  that  the  two  first  Evangelists 
and  the  last,  in  all  their  relations  of  our  blessed  Lord's  anointing,  refer 
to  one  and  the  same  event.  (Matt.  xxvi.  7  ;  Mark  xiv.  8  ;  John  xii.  3.) 
But  the  question  whether  St.  Luke  narrates  the  same  circumstance,  and 
the  woman  here,  '^  which  was  a  sinner  "  be  Mary  the  sister  of  Lazarus, 
which  then  must  follow,  is  more  difficult,  and  has  been  the  subject  of 
much  variety  of  opinion  from  the  earliest  times  in  the  Church,     The 

*  This  passage  also  shows  us  that  ipinavov  is  not  here,  as  so  many  say,  a  part  of 
the  whole,  and  in  place  of  Oeptards.  There  is  no  argument  for  this  to  be  derived  from 
the  word  dnoaTiWu  here,  which  is  not  stronger  than  the  Ticfu/zov  there,  where  yet  it  is 
plain  that  the  Lord  is  imagined  as  in  his  own  person  the  reaper  ;  and  compare  Joel 
iii.  13,  LXX.,  c^anoareiXaTe  SpiKava,    So  in  Latin,  immittere  falcem. 


THE  TWO  DEBTORS.  231 

main  arguments  for  the  identity  of  all  the  relations  are,  first,  the  name 
Simon,  as  that  of  the  giver  of  the  feast  in  one  place,  (Luke  vii.  40,)  and 
most  probably  so  in  the  other,  in  which  he  appears  as  the  master  of  the 
house  where  it  was  given  ;  (Matt.  xxvi.  6  ;)  secondly,  the  seeming  un- 
likelihood that  twice  the  Lord  should  have  been  honoured  in  so  very  un- 
usual a  manner;  and  thirdly,  the  strange  coincidence,  as  it  would 
otherwise  be,  that  in  each  case  there  should  have  been  on  the  part  of 
some  present  a  misinterpretation  of  the  thing  done,  an  offence  taken. 

To  these  arguments,  however,  it  may  be  answered  that  the  name  Si- 
mon was  of  much  too  frequent  use  among  the  Jews  for  any  stress  to  be 
laid  upon  the  sameness  of  the  name.  Again,  that  the  anointing  of  the 
feet  with  odours  or  with  ointments,  though  not  so  common  as  the  anoint- 
ing of  the  head,  yet  was  not  in  itself  something  without  precedent,*  the 
only  remarkable  coincidence  here  being,  that  Mary  the  sister  of  Laza- 
rus, and  the  woman  "  which  was  a  sinner,"  should  have  each  wiped  the 
feet  of  the  Lord  with  the  hairs  of  her  head.  (Luke  vii.  38  ;  John  xii.  3.) 
Now  if  this  had  been  any  merely  fantastic  honour  paid  to  the  Lord, 
which  to  offer  would  scarcely  have  occurred  to  more  persons  than  one, 
we  might  well  wonder  to  find  it  twice,  and  on  two  independent  occasions, 
repeated ; — but  take  it  as  an  expression  of  homage,  of  reverence  and 
love,  such  as  would  naturally  rise  out  of  the  deepest  and  truest  feelings 
of  the  human  heart,  and  then  its  recurrence  is  no  wise  wonderful. 
And  such  it  is ;  in  the  hair  is  the  glory  of  the  woman,  (see  1  Cor.  xi. 
15,)  long  beautiful  tresses  having  evermore  been  held  as  her  chiefest 
adornment  ;■]"  they  are  in  the  human  person  highest  in  place  and  in 
honour, — while  on  the  contrary  the   feet  are  lowest  in   both.      What 


*  Thus  Curtius  of  the  Indian  monarchs  (1.  8,  c.  9)  :  Demtis  soleis  odoribus  illinun- 
tur  pedes,  and  Plutarch  makes  mention,  though  on  a  very  peculiar  occasion,  of  wine 
and  sweet-smelling  essences  as  used  for  this  purpose.  (Becker's  Charikles,  v.  1,  p. 
428.)  The  custom  of  having  the  sandals  taken  off  by  those  in  attendance  before  meals, 
which  would  render  the  service  of  the  woman  easy  and  natural  to  be  done,  is  frequent- 
ly alluded  to  by  classic  writers.     Thus  Terence  : 

Adcurrunt  servi,  soccos  detrahunt, 

Inde  alii  festinare,  lectos  sternere, 

Ccenam  apparare  ; 
and  in  all  the  ancient  bas-reliefs  and  pictures  illustrative  of  the  subject,  we  see  the 
guests  reclining  with  their  feet  bare.     (See  the  Diet,  of  Gr.  and  Eom.  Antt.,  a,  v. 
Coena,  p.  253.) 

t  So  the  Latin  poet :  Quod  primum  formcc  decus  est,  cecidere  capilli.  And  of 
nearly  similar  uses  of  the  hair  in  extreme  humiliation  and  deprecation  of  the  divine 
anger  we  have  abundant  examples  in  profane  history.  Thus  Livy,  I.  3,  c.  7  :  Stratae 
passim  matres  crinibus  templa  verrentes  veniara  irarum  caelestium  exposcunt.  Cf. 
Polybius,  1.  9,  c.  6. 


232  THE  TWO  DEBTORS. 

then  was  this  service,  but  the  outward  expression,  and  incorporation  in 
an  act,  of  the  inward  truth,  that  the  highest  and  chiefest  of  man's  hon- 
our and  glory  and  beauty  were  lower  and  meaner  than  the  lowest  that 
pertained  to  the  Son  of  God  ;  that  they  only  found  their  true  place  when 
acknowledging  their  subjection  and  doing  service  to  him  ?  And  what 
wonder  that  the  Lord,  who  called  out  all  that  was  deepest  and  truest  in 
the  human  heart,  who  awoke  in  it,  as  none  else  might  ever  do,  feelings 
of  the  warmest  love  and  profoundest  reverence,  should  twice*  have 
been  the  object  of  this  honour?  Yet  was  it  an  honour,  we  may  observe, 
with  some  differences  in  the  motives  which  called  it  forth.  Once,  in  the 
case  of  Mary  the  sister  of  Lazarus,  the  immediately  impelling  cause 
was  intense  gratitude, — she  had  found  the  words  of  Christ  words  of  eter- 
nal life  to  herself,  and  he  had  crowned  his  gifts  to  her  by  giving  back 
to  her  a  beloved  brother,  whom  she  now  beheld  restored  to  life  and 
health  before  her;  the  pound  of  ointment  "very  costly"-]-  which  she 
brought,  was  a  thank-offering  from  her,  and  as  less  of  shame  was  min- 
gled  in  her  feelings,  she  anointed  both  her  Lord's  feet  and  also  his  head. 
But  what  brought  this  woman  with  the  alabaster  box  of  ointment  to 
Jesus,  was  the  earnest  yearning  after  the  forgiveness  of  her  sins,  and 
she,  in  her  deep  shame  and  abasement  of  soul  before  him,  presumed 
not  to  approach  him  nearer  than  to  anoint  his  feet  only,  standing  the 
while  behind  him  ;  and  kissing  them  with  her  lips,  and  wiping  with  the 
hair  of  her  head,  she  realized,  as  it  were,  in  an  outward  act,  the  bidding 
of  St.  Paul,  "  as  ye  have  yielded  your  members  servants  to  uncleanness 
and  to  iniquity  unto  iniquity  ;  even  so  now  yield  your  members  ser- 
vants to  righteousness  unto  holiness."  (Rom.  vi.  19.)  And  to  the 
third  argument  it  may  be  answered,  that  though  the  two  events  have 
this  in  common,  that  there  was  on  each  occasion  an  offence  taken,  yet 
beyond  this  there  is  nothing  similar.  In  the  one  case  it  is  the  Pharisee, 
the  giver  of  the  feast,  that  is  offended — in  the  other  some  of  the  disci- 
ples, and  mainly  Judas ; — again,  the  Pharisee  is  offended  with  the  Lord 
— Judas,  not  so  much  with  him,  as  with  the  woman  ;  — the  Pharisee, 
because  the  Lord's  conduct  seems  inconsistent  with  his  reputation  for 
holiness — but  Judas,  as  is  well  known,  from  a  yet  meaner  and  baser 
motive   of  covetoizsness.    To  all  which  it  may  be  added,  that   there  is 

*  Here,  as  in  so  many  other  places,  Strauss  {Leben  Jesu,  v.  1,  p.  782)  like  one  be- 
fore him,  murmurs  against  the  evangelical  history,  crying,  "  To  what  purpose  is  this 
waste  1"  as  though  that  history  could  not  but  be  wrong  which  was  thus  prodigal  in 
relating  honours  done  to  the  Saviour. 

t  Gregory  the  Great,  applying  the  "  very  costly"  to  this  history,  says  beautifully 
{Horn.  33  in  Evang.)  :  Consideravit  quid  fecit,  et  nolait  moderari  quid  faceret.  The 
whole  discourse  is  full  of  beauty. 


THE  TWO  DEBTORS.  233 

nothing  to  make  it  the  least  probable,  that  the  Mary  of  the  happy  family 
circle  in  Bethany,*  to  whom  the  Lord  bears  such  honourable  testi- 
mony, had  ever  been  aforetime  one  to  whom  the  title  of  *?!rtner,"f  as  it  is 
here  meant,  could  have  been  applied ;  and,  as  it  has  been  ingeniously 
observed,  with  the  risen  Lazarus  sitting  at  the  table,  even  this  Pharisee 
would  hardly  have  so  rapidly  drawn  his  conclusion  against  the  divine 
mission  and  character  of  his  guest. 

These  arguments  appear  so  convincing,  that  one  is  surprised  to  find 
how  much  fluctuation  of  opinion  there  has  been  from  the  very  first  in 
the  Church,  concerning  the  relation  of  these  histories  one  to  another, — 
the  Greek  Fathers  generally  distinguishing  them — the  Latin,  for  the 
most  part,  seeing  in  them  hut  one  and  the  same  history.  This  last 
opinion  however  finally  prevailed,  and  was  long  almost  the  universal  one 
in  the  Church,  that  is,  from  the  time  of  Gregory  the  Great,  who  threw 
all  his  weight  into  this  scale,:}:  until  the  times  of  the  Reformation.    Then, 

*  Ef/ii/^  xal  anovSaia,  a3  a  Greek  Father  entitles  her. 

t  "  Which  was  a  sinner,"  must  then  mean,  "  which  had  been  a  sinner,"  that  is,  in 
former  times,  but  had  long  since  been  brought  to  repentance  and  chosen  the  better  part, 
and  returned  to,  and  been  received  back  into,  the  bosom  of  her  family ;  even  as  the  his- 
tory must  be  related  here  altogether  out  of  its  place,  for  the  anointing  by  Mary  took 
place  immediately  before  the  Lord's  death,  it  was  for  his  burial.  (Matt.  xxvi.  12.) 
Many  do  thus  understand  the  words  to  refer  to  sins  long  ago  committed,  even  as  they 
had  been  long  ago  forsaken  ;  as  for  instance,  Grolius,  who  is  partly  moved  thereto  by 
the  necessities  of  his  harmony,  which  admits  but  one  anointing,  and  partly,  I  should 
imagine,  also  by  his  fear  of  antinomian  tendencies  in  the  other  interpretation  ;  for  that 
he  was  in  this  respect  somewhat  afraid  of  the  Gospel  of  the  grace  of  God,  his  Com- 
mentary on  the  Romans  gives  sufficient  evidence  :  even  as  the  same  fear  makes 
another  expositor  affirm,  that  her  sin,  for  which  she  was  thus  spoken  of  as  a  sinner, 
was  not  more  than  that  she  was  too  fond  of  adorning  her  person  ;  just  as  others  will 
not  allow  Rahab  to  have  been,  at  least  in  the  common  sense  of  the  term,  a  -nopfr]  at  all, 
but  only  the  keeper  of  a  lodging-house.  But  how  much  does  that  view  maintained  by 
Grotius  weaken  the  moral  effect  of  the  whole  scene,  besides  being  opposed  to  the  plain 
sense  of  the  words  ; — if  the  woman  had  long  since  returned  to  the  paths  of  piety  and 
holiness,  it  is  little  likely  that  even  the  Pharisee  would  have  been  so  vehemently  offend- 
ed at  the  gracious  reception  which  she  found,  or  would  have  spoken  of  her  as  he  does, 
"for  she  is  a  sinner."  We  should  rather  consider  this  as  the  turning  moment  of  her 
life,  and  it  is  evident  that  Augustine  (Serm.  99)  so  considered  it,  for  he  says  of  her : 
Accessit  ad  Dominum  immunda  ut  rediret  munda,  accessit  aegra  ut  rediret  sana. 
Moreover  in  that  other  case,  the  absolving  words,  "Thy  sins  are  forgiven,"  instead  of 
being  those  of  a  present  forgiveness,  now  first  passing  upon  her,  can  only  be  the  repeated 
assurance  of  a  forgiveness  which  she  must  long  since  have  received ;  and  how  strange 
and  unnatural  a  supposition  this  is,  every  one  may  judge. 

t  The  fact  of  this  opinion  being  introduced  into  one  of  the  hymns  in  the  Liturgy  as 

by  him  reformed, — 

Maria  sorer  Lazari, 
Quae  tot  commisit  crimina, — 
16 


234  THE  TWO  DEBTORS. 

when  the  Scriptures  were  again  subjected  to  a  more  critical  examina- 
tion, the  other  interpretation  gradually  became  prevalent  anew,  and  one 
miwht  sav,  had  for  some  while  been  recognized  almost  without  a  dis- 
sentient voice,  till  again  in  our  own  days  Schleiermacher  has  maintained, 
not  I  think  with  success,  but  certainly  with  extraordinary  acuteness, 
that  the  anointing  happened  but  once.  But  to  enter  further  on  this  de- 
bate would  be  alien  to  the  present  purpose :  and  the  passage  containing 
the  parable  of  the  Two  Debtors  will  be  considered  without  any  refer- 
ence to  the  histories  in  the  other  Gospels,  of  which  indeed  I  have  the 
firmest  conviction  that  it  is  altogether  independent. 

Our  Lord  having  been  invited  to  the  house  of  a  Pharisee,  had  there 
"  sat  down  to  meat.''  That  a  woman,  and  one  of  a  character  such  as  is 
here  represented,  should  have  pressed  into  the  guest-chamber,  and  this 
uninvited,  either  by  the  Lord,  or  by  the  master  of  the  house,  and  that 
she  should  have  there  been  permitted  to  offer  to  the  Saviour  the  form  of 
homage  which  she  did,  may  at  first  sight  appear  strange ; — yet  after  all 
does  not  require  the  supposition  of  something  untold  for  its  explanation, 
as  that  she  was  a  relation  of  Simon's,  or  lived  in  the  same  house, — sup- 
positions which  are  altogether  strange,  not  to  say  contradictory  to  the 
narrative.  A  little  acquaintance  with  the  manners  of  the  East,  where 
meals  are  so  often  almost  public,  where  ranks  are  not  separated  with 
such  iron  barriers  as  with  us,  will  make  us  feel  with  what  ease  such  an 
occurrence  might  have  taken  place.*     Or  if  this  seems  not  altogether  to 

must  have  had  great  influence  in  procuring  its  general  acceptance.     Even  so  we  have 
in  the  famous  Dies  ira,  composed  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
Qui  Mariam  absolvisti  .... 
Mihi  quoque  spem  dedlsti  ; 
though  here  may  possibly  be  allusion  to  Mary  Magdalene,  who  indeed  was   often, 
though  without  the  slightest  grounds,  save  that  the  first  notice  of  her  occurs  shortly 
after  this  incident,  (Luke  viii.  2,)  identified  with  this  woman  that  was  a  sinner ;  so  that 
many  have  made  but  one  and  the  same  person  of  Mary  the  sister  of  Lazarus,  Mary 
Magdalene,  and  this  woman.     Thus  Gregory  himself,  Horn.  33  in  Evang.     The  belief 
in  the  identity  of  the  two  last  has  indelibly  impressed  itself  on  the  very  language  of 
Christendom  ;  but  there  is  nothing  to  make  us  suppose  that  Mary  Magdalene  had  led 
an  eminently  sinful  life,  before  she  was  found  in  the  company  of  the  holy  women  that 
ministered  to  the  Lord,  unless  we  should  interpret  the  seven  devils  which  were  cast  out 
of  her,  to  mean  seven  sirs. — There  is  a  good  sketch  of  the  history  of  the  controversy 
concerning  this  matter  in  Deyling's  Obss.  Sac,  v.  3,  p.  291. 

*  The  following  confirmation  of  what  above  is  written  has  been  since  put  into  my 
hands:  "  At  a  dinner  at  the  Consul's  house  at  Damietta  we  were  much  interested  in 
observing  a  custom  of  the  country.  In  the  room  where  we  were  received,  besides  the 
divan  on  which  we  sat,  there  were  seats  all  round  the  walls.  Many  came  in  and  took 
their  places  on  those  side-seats,  uninvited  and  yet  unchallenged.  They  spoke  to  those 
at  table  on  business  or  the  news  of  the  day,  and  our  host  spoke  freely  to  them.     This 


THE  TWO  DEBTORS.  235 

explain  the  circumstance,  one  has  only  to  remember  how  easily  such 
obstacles  as  might  have  been  raised  up  against  her,  and  would  have 
seemed  insuperable  to  others,  or  to  herself  in  another  state  of  mind, 
would  have  been  put  aside,  or  broken  through  by  an  earnestness  such  as 
now  possessed  her:  even  as  it  is  the  very  nature  of  such  religious  ear- 
nestness to  break  through  and  despise  these  barriers,  nor  ever  to  pause 
and  ask  itself  whether  according  to  the  world's  judgment  it  be  "  in  sea- 
son" or  "out  of  season."* 

In  the  thoughts  which  passed  through  the  heart  of  the  Pharisee, — 
displeased  at  seeing  that  the  Lord  did  not  repel  the  woman,  but  gra- 
ciously accepted  her  homage, — the  true  spirit  of  a  Pharisee  betrays 
itself — of  one  who  could  not  raise  his  thoughts  beyond  a  ceremonial 
pollution,  nor  understand  of  holiness,  as  standing  in  anything  save  the 
purifying  of  the  flesh,-]-  who  would  have  said  to  that  woman,  had  she 
dared  to  approach  unto  hi7n,  "  Stand  by  thyself,  for  I  am  holier  than 


made  us  understand  the  scene  in  Simon's  house  at  Bethany,  where  Jesus  sat  at  supper, 
and  Mary  came  in  and  anointed  his  feet  with  ointment ;  and  also  the  scene  in  the 
Pharisee's  house,  where  the  woman  who  was  a  sinner  came  in,  uninvited  and  yet  not 
forbidden,  and  washed  his  feet  with  her  tears.  We  afterwards  saw  this  custom  at  Je- 
rusalem, and  there  it  was  still  more  fitted  to  illustrate  these  incidents.  We  were  sitting 
round  Mr.  Nicolayson's  table,  when  first  one  and  then  another  stranger  opened  the 
door,  and  came  in,  taking  their  seat  by  the  wall.  They  leant  forward  and  spoke  to  those 
at  the  table."  Narrative  of  a  Mission  of  Inquiry  to  the  Jews  from  the  Church  of  Scot- 
land in  1839. 

*  Augustine  {Enarr.  in  Ps.  cxl.  4)  :  Ilia  impudica,  quondam  frontosa  ad  fornica- 
tionem,  frontosior  ad  salutem  irrupit  in  domum  alienam  ;  and  again  (Serm.  99,  c.  1) : 
Vidistis  mulierem  famosam  .  .  .  non  invitatam  irruisse  convivio,  ubi  suus  medicus 
recumbebat,  et  quaesisse  pii  impudentia  sanitatem :  irruens  quasi  importuna  convivio, 
opportuna  beneficio :  and  Gregory  the  Great  {Horn.  33  in  Evang.) :  Quia  turpitudinis 
suae  maculas  aspexit,  lavanda  ad  fontem  misericordiae  cucurrit,convivantes  non  erubuit ; 
Nam  quia  semetipsam  graviter  erubescebat  intus,  nihil  esse  credidit,  quod  verecundare- 
tur  foris  ;  and  another  (Bernardi  0pp.,  v.  2,  p.  601) :  Gratias  tibi,  6  beatissima  pecca- 
trix  ;  ostendisti  mundo  tutum  satis  peccatoribus  locum,  pedes  scilicet  Jesu,qui  neminem 
spemunt,  neminem  rejiciunt,  neminem  repellunt :  suscipiunt  omnes,  omnes  admittunt* 
Ibi  certe  jEthiopissa  mutat  pellem  suam  ;  ibi  pardus  mutat  varietatem  suam  ;  ubi  solus 
Pharisaeus  non  exspumat  superbiam  suam. 

t  Augustine :  Habebat  sanctitatem  in  corpore  non  in  corde,  et  quia  non  habebat 
earn  in  corde,  utique  falsam  habebat  in  corpore.  Of.  Enarr.  in  Ps.  c.  5  ;  cxxv.  2  ;  and 
Gregory  the  Great  (Horn.  34  in  Evang.) :  Vera  justitia  compassionem  habet,  falsa  jus- 
titia  dedignationem. — As  a  specimen  of  similar  notions  of  holiness  current  among  the 
Jews,  a  commentator  on  Prov.  v.  8,  puts  this  very  quustion :  Quanto  spatio  a  meretrice 
recedendum  est?  R.  Chasda  respondet :  Ad  quatuorcubitos.  (Schoettgen,  i7or.  jFfei., 
V.  1,  p.  348.)  And  again,  p.  303,  various  Rabbis  are  extolled  for  the  precautions  which 
they  took  to  keep  lepers  at  a  distance  from  them  ;  for  example,  by  flinging  stones  at 
them  if  they  approached  too  near. 


236  THE  TWO  DEBTORS. 

thou  !"*  In  the  conclusion  to  which,  in  his  inward  heart,  he  arrived, 
"  This  man,  if  he  were  a  prophet,  would  have  known  who  and  what 
manner  of  woman  this  is  ;"  we  trace  the  belief,  so  evidently  current 
among  the  Jews,  that  discerning  of  spirits  was  one  of  the  marks  of  a 
true  prophet,  and,  in  an  especial  degree,  of  the  great  prophet  of  all,  the 
Messiah, — a  belief  founded  on  Isaiah  xi.  3,  4.  (See  1  Kin,  xiv.  6 ;  2 
Kin.  i.  3  ;  v.  26.)  Thus  Nathanael  first  exclaims  in  wonder  to  the  Lord 
who  has  truly  read  his  character,  "Whence  knowest  thou  me?"  and 
then  presently  breaks  out  into  that  undoubting  confession  of  faith, 
"  Thou  art  the  Son  of  God,  thou  art  the  King  of  Israel  ;"  and  so  the  Sa- 
maritan woman,  "Come  and  see  a  man  who  told  me  all  things  which 
ever  I  did :  is  not  this  the  Christ  ?"  (John  iv.  29 ;)  and  on  account  of 
this  belief  it  is,  that  the  Evangelists  are  so  often  careful  to  record  that 
Jesus  knew  the  thoughts  of  his  hearers,  or  as  St.  John  (ii.  25)  express- 
ly states  it,  "  needed  not  that  any  should  testify  of  man,  for  he  knew 
what  was  in  man."f  So  that,  in  fact,  the  Pharisee  mentally  put  the 
Lord  into  this  dilemma, — either  he  does  not  know  the  true  character  of 
this  woman,  in  which  case  he  lacks  that  discernment  of  spirits  which 
pertains  to  every  true  prophet ;  or  if  he  knows  it,  and  yet  endures  her 
touch  and  is  willing  to  accept  a  service  at  such  hands,  he  is  lacking  in 
that  holiness  which  is  also  the  mark  of  a  prophet  of  God  ;  such  therefore 
in  either  case  he  cannot  be.  Probably  as  these  thoughts  were  passing 
through  his  mind  he  already  began  to  repent  of  the  needless  honour  he 
had  shown  to  one,  whose  pretensions  to  a  peculiar  mission  from  God  he 
had  thus  quickly  concluded  were  unfounded.  But  the  Lord  showed  him 
that  he  was  indeed  a  discerner  of  the  thoughts  of  hearts,  by  reading  at 
once  what  was  passing  in  his  heart,  and  laying  his  finger  without  more 
ado  on  the  tainted  spot  which  was  there.  "  Simo7i,''  he  said,  "I  have 
somewhat  to  say  unto  thee."  The  other  could  not  refuse  to  hear,  nor  has 
he  yet  so  entirely  renounced  his  faith  in  some  higher  character  as  be- 
longing to  his  guest,  but  that  he  still  addresses  him  with  an  appellation 
of  respect,  "  Master,  say  on." 

With  this  introduction, — with  this  leave  to  speak  asked  and  received, 

the  parable  is  uttered.     "  There  was  a  certain  creditor  which  had  two 

debtors  :  the  one  owed  Jive  hundred  pence  and  the  other  fifty.  And  when 
they  had  nothing  to  pay,  he  frankly  forgave  them  both."     In  the  words 

*  Bernard,  in  a  beautiful  passage  (^Dc  Dedic.  Ecc.,Ser?n.4),  styles  him  :  Pharisajum 
ilium  murmurantem  atlversus  medicum,  qui  salutem  operabatur,  et  succensentem  lan- 
guidjE,  quae  salvabatur. 

t  Vitringa  (Obss.  Sac,  v.  1,  p.  479)  has  an  interesting  and  instructive  essay,  (De 
Signis  a  Messid  edendis,)  on  the  expectations  of  the  Jews  concerning  the  miracles 
which  the  Messiah  was  to  perform,  and  by  which  he  was  to  legitimate  his  pretensions. 


THE  TWO  DEBTORS.  237 

themselves  there  is  no  difficulty,  though  in  the  application  of  them  to 
the  case  which  they  were  spoken  to  illustrate,  there  are  one  or  two  of 
considerable  importance.  God,  it  needs  not  to  say,  is  the  creditor,  men 
the  debtors,  and  sins  the  debts.  Of  the  sums  named  as  the  amount  of 
the  debts,  fifty  and  five  hundred  pence,  it  may  be  remarked  that  they 
vary  indeed,  but  nothing  like  in  the  same  proportion  as  the  two  debts 
vary  in  the  parable  of  the  Unmerciful  Servant.  (Matt,  xviii.)  There 
the  difference  is  between  ten  thousand  talents  and  one  hundred  pence, 
an  enormous  difference,  even  as  the  difference  is  enormous  between  the 
sins  which  a  man  commits  against  God,  and  those  which  his  fellow-man 
may  commit  against  him  ;  but  here  the  difference  is  not  at  all  so  great, 
the  sums  vary  but  in  the  proportion  of  ten  to  one,  for  there  is  no  such  in- 
calculable difference  between  the  sins  which  one  man  and  another  com- 
mits against  God.  Our  Lord  proceeds :  "  Tell  me  therefore,  which  of 
them  will  love  him  most  ?  Si7non  answered,  I  suppose  that  he,  to  whom  he 
forgave  most."  The  difficulties  meet  us  when  we  come  to  the  applica- 
tion of  these  words  :  for  while  that  which  Simon  says  is  true  in  the 
order  of  things  natural,  can  the  consequences  which  would  seem  there- 
upon to  be  induced  as  relates  to  the  spiritual  world  be  true  also?  Are 
we  to  conclude  from  hence,  as  at  first  sight  might  seem,  that  there  is  any 
advantage  in  having  multiplied  transgressions  ? — that  the  wider  a  man 
has  wandered  from  God,  the  nearer,  if  he  be  brought  back  at  all,  he  will 
cleave  to  him  afterwards  ? — the  more  sin,  the  more  love  1  Would  it  not 
then  follow,  "  Let  us  do  evil  that  good  may  come," — let  us  sin  much 
now,  that  we  may  love  much  hereafter, — that  we  may  avoid  that  luke- 
warmness  of  affections  which  will  be  the  condition  of  those  that  have 
sinned  but  little  ?  And  would  it  not  then  seem,  that  for  a  man  to  have 
been  kept  out  of  gross  offences  in  the  time  before  he  was  awakened  to  a 
deeper  religious  earnestness, — or,  better  still,  for  a  man  to  have  grown 
out  of  his  baptismal  root, — instead  of  being  a  blessing,  and  a  mercy,  and 
a  matter  of  everlasting  thanksgiving,  would  prove  an  hindrance,  oppos- 
ing, in  his  case,  an  effectual  barrier  to  any  very  near  and  very  high 
communion  of  love  with  his  Saviour?  And  to  understand  the  passage 
thus,  would  it  not  be  to  affirm  a  moral  contradiction, — to  affirm  in  fact 
this,  that  the  more  a  man  has  emptied  himself  of  love, — the  more  he  has 
laid  waste  all  nobler  affections  and  powers, — the  deeper  his  heart  has 
sunk  in  selfishness  and  sensuality,  (for  sin  is  all  this,)  the  more  capable 
he  will  be  of  the  highest  and  purest  love  ? 

But  the  whole  matter  is  clear,  if  we  consider  the  debt,  not  as  an  ob- 
jective, but  a  subjective,  debt, — not  as  so  many  outward  transgressions 
and  outbreaks  of  evil,  but  as  so  much  conscience  of  sin :  and  this  we 
well  know  is  in  no  wise  in  proportion  to  the  amount  and  extent  of  evil 


238  THE  TWO  DEBTORS. 

actually  committed  and  brought  under  the  cognizance  of  other  men 
Often  they  who  have  least  of  what  the  world  can  call  sin,  or  rather 
crime,  (for  the  world  knows  nothing  of  sin,)  have  yet  the  deepest  sense 
of  the  exceeding  sinfulness  of  sin — are  most  conscious  of  it,  as  a  root  of 
bitterness  in  themselves — are  the  most  forward  to  exclaim,  "  Woe  is  me, 
I  am  undone,  because  I  am  a  man  of  unclean  lips  ;"  and  therefore,  as 
they  have  most  groaned  under  the  evil,  are  the  most  thankful  for  the 
fact  of  a  redemption,  for  the  gift  of  a  Redeemer.  But  he  who  has  little 
forgiven  is  not  necessarily  he  who  has  sinned  little,  but  he  who  is  lack- 
ing in  any  strong  conviction  of  the  exceeding  evil  of  sin,  who  has  little 
feeling  of  his  own  share  in  the  universal  taint  and  corruption  that 
cleaves  to  all  the  descendants  of  Adam,  who  has  never  learned  to  take 
home  his  sin  to  himself;  who,  therefore,  while  he  may  have  no  great 
objection  to  God's  plan  of  salvation,  may  have  a  cold  respect,  as  this 
Pharisee  had,  for  Christ,  yet  esteems  that  he  could  have  done  as  well, 
or  nearly  as  well,  without  him.  He  loves  little,  or  scarcely  at  all,  be- 
cause he  has  little  sense  of  a  deliverance  wrought  for  him ;  because  he 
never  knew  what  it  was  to  lie  under  the  curse  of  a  broken  law,  having 
the  sentence  of  death  in  himself,  and  then  by  that  merciful  Saviour  to  be 
set  free,  and  bidden  to  live,  and  brought  into  the  glorious  liberty  of  the 
children  of  God.* 

Simon  himself  was  an  example  of  one  who  thus  loved  little,  who 
having  little  sense  of  sin,  felt  little  his  need  of  a  Redeemer,  and  there- 
fore loved  that  Redeemer  but  little :  and  he  had  betrayed  this  his  lack 
of  love  in  small  yet  significant  matters.  Accounting,  probably,  the  in- 
vitation itself  as  sufficient  honour  done  to  his  guest,  he  had  withheld 
from  him  the  ordinary  courtesies  almost  universal  in  the  East — had 
neither  given  him  water  for  the  feet,  (Gen.  xviii.  4 ;  Judg.  xix.  21,) 
nor  offered  him  the  kiss  of  peace,  (Gen.  xxii.  4 ;  Exod.  xviii.  7,)  nor 
anointed  his  head  with  oil,  as  was  ever  the  custom  at  festivals.  (Ps. 
xxiii.  5  ;  cxli.  5  ;  Matt.  vi.  17.)  But  while  he  had  fallen  so  short  of  the 
customary  courtesies,  that  woman  had  far  exceeded  them.  He  had  not 
poured  waier  on  the  Saviour's  feet, — she  had  washed  them,  not  with 


*  Augustine  (Serfn.  99,  c.  4)  freely  acknowledges  the  stress  of  this  difficulty  :  Dicit 
enim  aliquis,  Si  cui  modicum  dimittitur,  modici\m  diligit ;  cui  autem  plus  dimittitur, 

plus  diligit,  expedit  plus  diligere  qakm  minfts  diligere  :  oportet  ut  multiim  peccemus 

ut  dimissorem  magnoruin  debitorum  amplius  diligamus ;  and  again  :  Si  invenero  plus 
diligere  eum,  cui  plura  peccata  dimissa  sunt,  utilius  multa  peccavit,  utilior  erat  multa 
iniquitas,  ne  esset  tepida  caritas.  And  he  solves  it  as  is  done  above  :  O  Pharisaee, 
ideo,  parum  diligis,  quia  parum  tibi  dimitti  suspicaris  :  non  quia  parum  dimittitur,  sed 
quia  parum  putas  esse,  quod  dimittitur.  Compare  a  beautiful  sermon  by  Schleiermacher. 
{Predigten,  v.  1,  p.  524  ) 


THE  TWO  DEBTORS.  239 

water  but  with  her  tears — the  blood  of  her  heart,*  as  Augustine  calls 
them, — and  then  wiped  them  with  the  hairs  of  her  head ; — he  had  not 
given  the  single  kiss  of  salutation  on  the  cheek,  she  had  multiplied 
kisses,  and  those  upon  the  feet ;  he  had  not  anointed  the  head  of  Jesus  with 
ordinary  oil, — but  she  with  precious  ointment  had  anointed  even  his  feet. 
"  Wherefore  I  say  unto  thee,  Her  sins  which  are  many,  are  forgiven  ; 
for  she  loved  much :  but  to  whom  little  is  forgiven  the  same  loveth  little.^' 
There  is  an  embarrassment,  by  all  acknowledged,  on  the  face  of  these 
words  ;  first,  how  to  bring  them  into  agreement  with  the  parable,  for  in 
that  the  debtor  is  said  to  love  much,  because  forgiven  much,  and  not  to 
be  forgiven  much,  because  he  loved  much  :  and  again  how  to  bring 
them  into  agreement  with  the  general  doctrine  of  Scripture,  which  ever 
teaches  that  we  love  God  because  he  first  loved  us, — that  faith  is  the 
previous  condition  of  forgiveness,  and  not  love,  which  is  not  a  condition 
at  all,  but  a  consequence.  Some  have  felt  these  difficulties  so  strongly, 
that  in  their  terror  lest  the  Romanists  should  draw  any  advantage  for  their 
fides  formata  from  the  passage, — which  indeed  they  are  willing  enough 
to  do, — they  have  affirmed  that  the  word  designating  the  cause  really 
stands  for  that  designating  the  consequence, — that  "  her  sins  are  for- 
given,  for  she  loved  much,"  means,  "  her  sins  are  forgiven,  therefore 
she  loved  ?/iuc/i."f  But  in  the  first  place,  it  was  not  true  that  she 
yet  knew  her  sins  to  be  forgiven, — the  absolving  words  are  only 
spoken  in  the  next  verse  ;  and  moreover,  this  way  of  eseape  from  a  doc- 
trinal embarrassment,  by  some  violence  done  to  the  plain  words  of  the 
text,  will  at  once  be  rejected  by  all,  who  justly  believe  that  in  the  inter- 
pretation  of  Scripture,  grammar,  and  the  laws  of  human  speech,  should 
first  be  respected,  and  that  the  doctrine  can  and  will  take  care  of  itself 
— will  never  in  the  end  be  found  in  any  contradiction  with  itself, — that 
the  faith  of  the  Church  will  ever  come  triumphantly  forth  out  of  every 
part  of  the  word  of  God.  And  as  far  as  regards  advantage  which  the 
Romish  controversialists  would  fain  draw  from  the  passage,  such,  what- 
ever may  be  the  explanation,  there  can  really  be  none.  The  parable 
stands  in  the  heart  of  the  narrative,  an  insuperable  barrier  against  such; 
he  who  owed  the  large  debt  is  not  forgiven  it  as  freely  as  the  other  is 
his  smaller  debt,  because  of  the  greater  love  which  he  before  felt  to- 
wards the  creditor  ;:j:  but,  on  the  contrary,  the  sense  of  a  larger  debt 

*  Fudit  lacrynias,  sanguinem  cordis. 

t  They  say  oVi  is  here  for  Ho,  and  appeal  to  John  viii.  44  and  1  John  iii.  14 ;  but 
neither  passage,  rightly  interpreted,  yields  the  least  support  to  the  view  that  the  words 
could  ever  be  interchangeably  used.     (See  Winer's  Grammatik,  p.  426.) 

X  Incredible  as  it  v/ill  appear,  this  is  actually  the  interpretation  of  the  parable  given 
by  Maldonatus,  (ad  loc.) :  "  Which  of  them  will  love  him  most  ?"  is  only,  he  affirms, 


240  THE  TWO  DEBTORS. 

remitted,  makes  him  afterwards  love  his  creditor  more.  And  besides, 
were  it  meant  that  her  sins  were  forgiven,  because, — in  their  sense  who 
would  make  charity  justify  and  not  faith,* — she  loved  much,  the  other 
clause  in  the  sentence  would  necessarily  be,  "  But  he  who  loveth  little, 
to  the  same  little  is  forgiven." 

But  the  words,  '■'■for  she  loved  much,''  may  best  be  explained  by  con- 
sidering what  the  strong  sorrow  for  sin,  and  the  earnest  desire  after  for- 
giveness, such  as  this  woman  displayed,  mean,  and  from  whence  they 
arise  ; — surely  from  this,  from  the  deep  feeling  in  the  sinner's  heart,  that 
by  his  sins  he  has  separated  himself  from  that  God  who  is  Love,  while 
yet  he  cannot  do  without  his  love, — from  the  feeling  that  the  heart  must 
be  again  permitted  to  love  him,  must  be  again  assured  of  his  love  toward 
it,  else  it  will  utterly  wither  and  die.  Sin  unforgiven  is  felt  to  be  the 
great  barrier  to  this  ;  and  the  desire  after  forgiveness, — if  it  be  not  a 
mere  selfish  desire  after  personal  safety,  in  which  case  it  can  be  nothing 
before  God, — is  the  desire  for  the  removal  of  this  barrier,  that  so  the 
heart  may  be  free  to  love  and  to  know  itself  beloved  again.  This  desire 
then  is  itself  love  at  its  negative  pole,  not  as  yet  made  positive,  for  the 
work  of  grace,  the  absolving  word  of  God  can  alone  make  it  so  ;  it  is 
the  flower  of  love  desiring  to  bud  and  bloom,  but  not  daring  and  not  able 
to  put  itself  forth  in  the  chilling  atmosphere  of  the  anger  of  God, — but 

a  popular  way  of  saying,  "  Which  of  them  did  love  him  most  V — which  of  them  may 
you  conclude  from  the  effect  to  have  had  most  affection  for  l:\im,  and,  therefore,  to  have 
been  dearest  to  him,  he  in  whose  behalf  he  was  willing  to  remit  a  large  debt,  or  he  in 
whose  behalf  he  only  remitted  a  small  ? — He  asserts  the  same  to  have  been  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  parable  given  by  Euthemius,  and  also  by  Augustine  ;  in  the  case  of 
the  last  this  is  certainly  untrue. 

*  Let  me  quote,  were  it  only  with  the  hope  of  bringing  it  before  one  reader  who 
was  hitherto  ignorant  of  it,  the  following  passage  on  the  attempt  thus  to  substitute 
charity  for  faith  in  the  justification  of  man.  "  To  many,  to  myself  formerly,  it  has  ap- 
peared a  mere  dispute  about  words :  but  it  is  by  no  means  of  so  harmless  a  character, 
for  it  tends  to  give  a  false  direction  to  our  thoughts,  by  diverting  the  conscience  from 
the  ruined  and  corrupted  state  in  which  we  are  without  Christ.  Sin  is  the  disease. 
What  is  the  remedy? — Charity? — Pshaw  ?  Charity  in  the  large  apostolic  sense  of  the 
term  is  the  health,  the  state  to  be  obtained  by  the  use  of  the  remedy,  not  the  sovereign 
balm  itself, — faith  of  grace, — faith  in  the  God-manhood,  the  cross,  the  mediation,  the 
perfected  righteousness  of  .Tesus,  to  the  utter  rejection  and  abjuration  of  all  righteous- 
ness of  our  own  !  Faith  alone  is  the  restorative.  The  Romish  scheme  is  preposterous  ; 
— it  puts  the  rill  before  the  spring.  Faith  is  the  source, — charity,  that  is  the  whole 
Christian  life,  is  the  stream  from  it.  It  is  quite  childish  to  talk  of  faith  being  imperfect 
without  charily  ;  as  wisely  might  you  say  that  a  fire,  however  bright  and  strong,  was 
imperfect  without  heat ;  or  that  the  sun, however  cloudless,  is  imperfect  without  beams. 
The  true  answer  would  be  : — it  is  not  faith, — but  utter  reprobate  faithlessness."  (Cole- 
ridge, Literary  Remains,  v.  2,  p.  368.) 


THE  TWO  DEBTORS.  241 

which  will  do  so  at  once  when  to  the  stern  winter  of  God's  anger,  the 
genial  spring  of  his  love  succeeds.  In  this  sense  that  woman  "  loved 
much ;"  all  her  conduct  proved  the  intense  yearning  of  her  heart  after  a 
reconciliation  with  a  God  of  love,  from  whom  she  had  alienated  herself 
by  her  sins  ;  all  her  tears  and  her  services  witnessed  how  much  she  de- 
sired to  be  permitted  to  love  him  and  to  know  herself  beloved  of  him, 
and  on  account  of  this  her  love,  which,  in  fact,  was  faith,*  (see  ver.  50, 
**  Thy  faith  hath  saved  thee,")  she  obtained  forgiveness  of  her  sins.  This 
sense  of  the  miserable  emptiness  of  the  creature, — this  acknowledgment 
that  a  life  apart  from  God  is  not  life  but  death,  with  the  conviction  that 
in  God  there  is  fulness  of  grace  and  blessing,  and  that  he  is  willing  to 
impart  of  this  fulness  to  all  who  bring  the  empty  vessel  of  the  heart  to 
be  filled  by  him  ;  this,  call  it  faith,  or  initiatory  love,  is  what  alone  makes 
man  receptive  of  any  divine  gift, — this  is  what  that  Pharisee,  in  his  le- 
gal  righteousness,  in  his  self-sufficiency  and  pride,f  had  scarcely  at  all, 
and  therefore  he  derived  little  or  no  good  from  communion  with  Christ. 
But  that  woman  had  it  in  large  measure,  and  therefore  she  bore  away 
the  largest  and  best  blessing  which  the  Son  of  God  had  to  bestow,  even 
the  forgiveness  of  her  sins ;  to  her  those  blessed  words  were  spoken, 
"  Thy  faith  hath  saved  thee,  go  in  peace  ;"  and  in  her  it  was  proved  true 
that  "where  sin  abounded,  grace  did  much  more  abound." 

*  Very  distinctly  Theophylact  (in  loc.) :  "On  jjyuriyo-c  nn\v,  dvTi  tov,  irtanv  heSei^aro 
ToWfiv,  and  presently  before  he  calls  all  which  she  had  been  doing  for  her  Saviour,  Tria- 
Tcoi;  cvjj/Ho'Xa  kol  dyavri;.  For  further  testimonies  in  favour  of  this  exposition,  see  Ger- 
hard's Loc.  Theoll.,  loc.  16,  c.  8,  §  1. 

+  In  the  Bustan  of  the  famous  Persian  poet  Saadi,  (see  Thot.uck's  BlUthensamml. 
aus  d.  Morgenl.  Mystik,  p.  251,)  there  is  a  story  which  seems  an  echo  of  this  evangeli- 
cal history.  Jesus,  while  on  earth,  was  once  entertained  in  the  cell  of  a  dervisch  or 
monk,  of  eminent  reputation  for  sanctity  ;  in  the  same  city  dwelt  a  youth  sunk  in  every 
sin, "  whose  heart  was  so  black  that  Satan  himself  shrunk  back  from  it  in  horror." 
This  last  presently  appeared  before  the  cell  of  the  monk,  and,  as  smitten  by  the  very 
presence  of  the  Divine  prophet,  began  to  lament  deeply  the  sin  and  misery  of  his  life 
past,  and  shedding  abundant  tears,  to  implore  pardon  and  grace.  The  monk  indig- 
nantly interrupted  him,  demanding  how  he  dared  to  appear  in  his  presence  and  in  that 
of  God's  holy  prophet  ;  assured  him  that  for  him  it  was  in  vain  to  seek  forgiveness  ; 
and  in  proof  how  inexorably  he  considered  his  lot  was  fixed  for  hell,  exclaimed, 
"  My  God,  grant  me  but  one  thing,  that  I  may  stand  far  from  this  man  on  the  judg- 
ment-day." On  this  Jesus  spoke,  "  It  shall  be  even  so  :  the  prayer  of  both  is  granted. 
This  sinner  has  sought  mercy  and  grace,  and  has  not  sought  them  in  vain, — his  sins 
are  forgiven, — his  place  shall  be  in  Paradise  at  the  last  day.  But  this  monk  has  pray- 
ed that  he  may  never  stand  near  this  sinner, — his  prayer  too  is  granted, — hell  shall  be 
his  place,  for  there  this  sinner  shall  never  come. 


242  THE  GOOD  SAMARITAN. 


PARABLE  XVII. 


THE    GOOD    SAMARITAN. 

Luke  x.  30-37. 

We  need  not  suppose  that  the  lawyer,  who  "  stood  up"  and  proposed  to 
our  Lord  the  question  out  of  which  this  parable  presently  grew,  had  any 
malicious  intention  therein,  least  of  all  that  deep  malignity  which  moved 
questions  like  those  recorded  at  John  viii.  6  ;  Matt.  xxii.  16  ;  which 
were,  in  fact,  nothing  less  than  snares  for  his  life  ;  nor  need  we  attrib- 
ute to  this  lawyer  even  that  desire  to  perplex  and  silence,  out  of  which 
other  questions  had  their  rise.  (Matt.  xxii.  23.)  For  in  the  first  place, 
the  question  itself,  "What  shall  I  do  to  inherit  eternal  life  ]"  was  not  an 
ensnaring  one  ;  it  was  not  one  like  that  concerning  the  tribute-money, 
which  it  was  hoped  would  put  the  answerer,  however  he  replied,  in  a 
false  position  ;  and  further,  we  may  conclude  from  the  earnestness  of 
the  Lord's  reply,  that  the  spirit  out  of  which  the  question  was  proposed, 
had  not  been  altogether  light  or  mocking  ;  since  it  was  not  his  manner  to 
answer  so  the  mere  cavillers  or  despisers.  The  only  ground  for  attribu- 
ting an  evil  intention  to  this  scribe,  or  lawyer, — for  Matt,  x.xii.  35,  com- 
pared with  Mark  xii.  28,  show  that  scribe  and  lawyer  are  the  same, — is 
that  he  is  said  to  have  put  the  question  to  Christ  "  tempting  him."  But 
to  tempt,  in  its  proper  signification,  means  nothing  more  than  to  make 
trial  of,  and  whether  the  tempting  be  good  or  evil,  is  determined  by  the 
motive  out  of  which  it  springs.  Thus  God  tempts  man,  when  he  puts 
him  to  proof,  that  he  may  show  him  what  is  in  himself, — that  he  may 
show  him  sins,  which  else  might  have  remained  concealed  even  from 
himself;  (Jam.  i.  12  ;)  he  tempts  man  to  bring  out  his  good,  and  to 
strengthen  it;  (Gen.  xxii.  1 ;  Heb.  xi.  17 ;)  or  if  to  bring  his  evil  out,  it 
is  that  the  man  may  himself  also  become  aware  of  some  evil  which  be- 
fore was  concealed  from  him,  and  watch  and  pray  against  it, — it  is  to 
humble  him  and  to  do  him  good  in  his  latter  end  ;*  only  Satan  tempts  man 

*  Iltipo^cii'  =  TreTpav  \a^(iavtiv.  Augustine  very  frequently  describes  the  manner 
in  which  it  can  be  said  that  God  tempts,  and  the  purposes  which  he  has  in  tempting ; 
thus  {Enarr.  in  Ps.  Iv.  1) :  Omnis  tentatio  probatio  est,  et  omnia  probationis  effectus 
habet  fructum  suum.  Quia  homo  plerumque  etiam  sibi  ipsi  ignotus  est :  quid  ferat, 
quidve  non  ferat  ignorat,  et  aliquando  prjESumit  se  ferre  quod  non  potest,  et  aliquando 


THE  GOOD  SAMARITAN.  243 

purely  to  irritate  and  bring  out  and  multiply  his  evil.  The  purpose  of 
this  lawyer  in  tempting  Jesus,  as  it  was  not  on  the  one  side  that  high  and 
holy  one,  so  as  little  seems  it  this  deeply  malignant  on  the  other.  The 
Evangelist  probably  meant  nothing  more  than  that  he  desired  to  put  the 
Lord  to  the  trial.  Comparing  Matt.  xxii.  35  with  Mark  xii.  28-34,  both 
records  of  the  same  conversation,  we  shall  see  that  in  the  first  the  ques- 
tioner is  said  to  have  proposed  his  question,  as  in  the  present  case,  tempt- 
ing the  Lord  ;  while  in  the  second  Evangelist,  the  Lord  bears  witness 
concerning  the  very  questioner,  "  Thou  art  not  far  from  the  kingdom  of 
God  ;"  even  as  he  was  evidently  a  seeker  and  lover  of  truth.  We  can- 
not, indeed,  suppose  that  the  question,  on  the  present  occasion,  arose 
purely  from  love  of  the  truth,  and  a  desire  to  be  further  instructed  in  it ; 
but  the  lawyer  probably  would  fain  make  proof  of  the  skill  of  this  fa- 
mous  Galilaean  teacher,  he  would  measure  his  depths,  and  with  this  pur- 
pose he  brought  forward  the  question  of  questions,  "  What  shall  I  do  to 
inherit  eternal  life  ?" 

Our  Lord's  reply  is  as  much  as  to  say, — The  question  you  ask  is  al- 
ready answered  ;  what  need  to  make  further  inquiries,  when  the  answer 
is  contained  in  the  words  of  that  very  law,  of  which  you  profess  to  be  a 
searcher  and  expounder  ?  What  is  written  there  concerning  this  great 
question  ?  "  How  readest  thou  ?"  That  the  lawyer  should  at  once  lay 
his  finger  on  the  great  commandment  which  Christ  himself  quoted  as 
such  on  that  other  occasion  just  referred  to,  showed  no  little  spiritual  in- 
sight,— proved  that  he  was  superior  to  the  common  range  of  his  country, 
men  :  he  quotes  rightly  Deut.  vi.  5,  in  connexion  with  Lev.  xix.  18,  as 
containing  the  essence  of  the  law.  Thereupon  our  Lord  bears  him  tes- 
timony  that  he  has  answered  well, — that  his  words  were  right  words, 
however  he  might  be  ignorant  of  their  full  import, — of  all  which  they  in- 
volved :  "  Thou  hast  answered  right ;  this  do,  and  thou  shalt  live  ;"  put 
this  which  thou  knowest  into  effect, — let  it  pass  from  dead  uninfluential 
knowledge  into  living  practice,  and  it  will  be  well.  Now  at  length  the 
lawyer's  conscience  is  touched  :  these  last  words  have  found  him  out ; 
however  he  may  have  owned  in  theory  the  law  of  love,  he  has  not  been 
living  in  obedience  to  it.  Still  he  would  fain  justify  himself;  if  he  has 
not  been  large  and  free  in  the  exercise  of  love  towards  his  fellow  men, 
it  is  because  few  have  claims  upon  him  : — "  True,  I  am  to  love  my 
neighbour  as  myself,  but  who  is  my  neighbour  ?"*     The  very  question, 

desperat  se  posse  ferre  quod  potest.  Accedit  tentatio  quasi  interrogatio,  et  invenitur 
homo  k  seipso,  quia  latebat  et  seipsum,  sed  artificem  non  latebat.  Thus  God  tempts, 
as  ioKijiaaThi  tuiv  KapStuiv,  Satan,  on  the  contrary,  is  The  tempter  (5  n-tipu^wv  :=  o  TTEipao-r^s .) 
Cf.  Tertullian,  De  Oratione,  c.  8. 

*  Tholuck  {Auslegung  der  Bergpredigt,  Matt.  v.  43,)  has  an  instructive  inquiry 


244  THE  GOOD  SAMARITAN. 

like  Peter's,  "  How  oft  shall  my  brother  sin  against  me,  and  I  forgive 
him  1"  was  not  merely  a  question  which  might  receive  a  wrong  answer, 
but  itself  a  wrong  question,  involving  a  wrong  condition  of  mind,  out  of 
which  alone  it  could  have  proceeded.  He  who  asked,  "Whom  shall  I 
love  ?"  proved  that  he  understood  not  what  that  love  meant  of  which  he 
spoke,  for  he  wished  to  have  laid  down  beforehand  how  much  he  was  to 
do,  and  where  he  should  be  at  liberty  to  stop, — who  had  a  claim  and 
who  not  upon  his  love  ;  thus  proving  that  he  knew  nothing  of  that  love, 
whose  essence  is,  that  it  has  no  limit,  except  in  its  own  inability  to  pro- 
ceed  further, — that  it  receives  a  law  only  from  itself, — that  it  is  a  debt 
which  we  must  be  well  content  to  be  ever  paying,  and  not  the  less  still 
to  owe.  (Rom.  xiii.  8.)  Especially  wonderful  is  the  reply  which  our 
blessed  Saviour  makes  to  him,  wonderful,  that  is,  in  its  adaptation  to  the 
needs  of  him  to  whom  it  was  addressed,  leading  him,  as  it  does,  to  take 
off  his  eye  from  the  object  to  which  love  is  to  be  shown,  and  to  turn  it 
back  and  inward  upon  him  who  is  to  show  the  love  ;  for  this  is  the  key 
to  the  following  parable,  and  with  this  aim  it  was  spoken. 

"A  certain  man  went  dotvn  from  Jerusalem  to  JericJio."  He  says, 
*'  went  down,"  or,  "was  going  down,"  not  merely  because  Jerusalem 
stood  considerably  higher  than  Jericho, — for  the  phrase  would  have  its 
fitness  in  this  view, — but  because  the  going  to  Jerusalem,  as  to  the  me- 
troplis,  was  always  spoken  of  as  going  up.  (See  Acts  xviii.  22.)  The 
distance  between  the  two  cities  was  about  an  hundred  and  fifty  stadia, — 
the  road  lying  through  a  desolate  and  rocky  region — "the  wilderness 
that  goeth  up  from  Jericho,"  (Josh.  xvi.  1,)  though  the  plain  of  Jericho 
itself,  the  second  city  in  Judaea,  was  one  of  extraordinary  fertility  and 
beauty,  well  watered,  and  abounding  in  palms,  ("  the  city  of  palm-trees," 
Judg.  i.  16,)  in  roses,  in  balsam,  in  honey,  and  in  all  the  choicest  produc- 
tions of  Palestine.*  St.  Jerome  mentions  that  a  particular  part  of  the 
road  leading  from  one  of  these  cities  to  the  other,  was  called  the  red  or 


on  the  interpretation  which  the  Jews  gave  to  the  term  "  neighbour,"  in  the  law. — It 
is  striking  to  see  the  question  of  the  narrow-hearted  scribe,  "  Who  is  my  neiglibour  ]" 
reappearing  in  one  who  would  think  that  they  two  had  little  in  common.  I  make  this 
extract  from  Emerson's  Essays  {Ess.  2)  :  "  Do  not  tell  me,  as  a  good  man  did  lo-day, 
of  my  obligation  to  put  all  poor  men  in  good  situations.  Are  they  my  poor?  I  tell 
thee,  thou  foolish  philanthropist,  that  I  grudge  the  dollar,  the  dime,  the  cent,  I  give  to 
suck  men  as  do  not  belong  to  me,  and  to  whom  I  do  not  belong.  There  is  a  class 
of  persons  to  whom  by  all  spiritual  affinity  I  am  bought  and  sold  ;  for  them  I  will  go  to 
prison,  if  need  be  ;  but  your  miscellaneous  popular  charities,  &c." 

*  CoTORici  /<incr.,  quoted  by  Winer  {Real  W(irterhuch,s.  v.  Jericho)  :  Est  in  plani- 
tie  sita  peramplft,  montibus  in  theatri  formam  circumdata,  amamissimS  quidem  et  pin- 
guis3ima,  sed  incultA  hodie,  floribus  tamen  et  herbis  odoriferis  abundantissimS. 


THE  GOOD   SAMARITAN.  245 

the  bloody  way,*  so  much  blood  had  there  been  shed  by  robbers  ;  and 
that  in  his  own  time,  there  was  at  one  point  in  this  wilderness  a  fort  with 
a  Roman  garrison,  for  the  protection  of  travellers  ;  so  that  the  incident 
of  the  poor  traveller  falling  in  that  very  journey  among  robbers  seems 
taken  from  the  life.  Those  among  whom  he  fell  did  their  best  to  main- 
tain the  infamous  character  of  the  spot,  for  they  ^^  stripped  him  of  his  rai- 
ment,''^ and,  because,  perhaps,  he  made  some  slight  resistance  as  they  were 
spoiling  him,  or  out  of  mere  wantonness  of  cruelty,  "  wounded  him,  and 
departed,  leaving  him  half  dead. ^^ 

As  he  lay  bleeding  in  the  road,  "  hy  chance  there  came  down  a  certain 
priest  that  way."  The  original  would  justify  us  in  saying  rather  •'  by  coin- 
cidence "f  than  "  by  chance ;"  by  that  wonderful  falling  in  of  one  event 
with  another,  which  often  indeed  seems  to  men  but  chance,  yet  is  indeed 
of  the  fine  weaving  in,  by  God's  providence,  of  the  threads  of  diflerent 
men's  lives  into  one  common  woof.  He  brings  the  negative  pole  of  one- 
man's  need  into  contact  with  the  positive  of  another  man's  power  of  help! 
— one  man's  emptineSg'iMib:  relation  with  another's  fulness.  Many  op 
our  summonses  to  acts  of  love  are  of  this  kind,  and  they  are  those  per- 
haps which  we  are  most  in  danger  of  missing,  through  a  failing  to  see 
in  them  this  finger  of  God.  He  at  least  who  went  down  that  way  miss- 
ed his  opportunity.  There  would  be  a  fine  irony  in  the  supposition  that 
he  was  one  who  was  journeying  from  Jericho,  which  was  a  great  station 
of  the  priests,  to  Jerusalem,  there  to  execute  his  office  before  God,  "  in 
the  order  of  his  course,"  or  who,  having  accomplished  his  turn  of  service, 
was  returning  to  his  home.  But  whether  this  was  so  or  not,  at  all  events 
he  was  one  who  had  never  learned  what  that  meant,  "  I  will  have  mer- 
cy,  and  not  sacrifice;"  rather  one  who,  whatever  duties  he  might  have 
been  careful  in  fulfilling,  had  "  omitted  the  weightier  matters  of  the  law, 
judgment,  mercy,  and  faith  ;" — for  "  wheii  he  saw  him,  he  passed  hy  on  the 
other  side."  X  ^o  likewise  did  a  LevitCj^though  in  his  cruelty  there  was 
an  additional  aggravation ;  for  he,  it  might  beout  of  curiosity,  drew  near 
and  looked  at  the  miserable  condition  of  the  wounded  man,  claiming,  as 
it  did,  instant  help  ;  for  the  life  that  remained  was  fast  ebbing  through 

*  Onomast.,  s.  v.  Adommim.  There  is  a  particularly  impressive  description  of  this 
dreary  route  in  Lamartine's  Travels  in  the  Holy  Land.  Indeed  no  travellers  seem 
to  have  gone  this  journey  without  being  deeply  impressed  with  the  wildness  and  deso- 
lation  of  the  road. 

t   Kara  avyKvpiav.      TiVyKVpta,  or    more    commonly  avyKvpriTis,  from  avv  and  AUjOECJ  = 

Twyx"""'  *^^  falling  in  of  one  event  vi'ith  another,  exactly  our  English  coincidence. 

t  ]f  the  wounded  man  was  a  Jew,  and  it  is  very  unnatural  to  assume  him  to  have 
been  any  other,  his  countrymen  (the  priest  and  the  Levite)  were  in  this  very  far  indeed 
from  deserving  even  that  limited  praise  which  Tacitus  gives  them  :  Apud  ipsos  niiseri- 
cordia  in  promptu. 


246  THE  GOOD  SAMARITAN. 

his  open  gashes,  and  yet  after  all  could  endure  to  pass  forward  without 
affording  him  the  sliglitest  assistance.  Thus  did  they,  who  made  their 
boast  in,  and  were  the  express  interpreters  of,  that  law,  which  was  so 
careful  in  pressing  the  duties  of  humanity,  that  twice  it  had  said, 
"  Thou  shalt  not  see  thy  brother's  ass,  or  his  ox,  fall  down  by  the  way, 
and  hide  thyself  from  them  ;  thou  shalt  surely  help  him  to  lift  them  up 
again."  (Deut.  xxii.  4 ;  Exod.  xxiii.  5.)  Here  not  a  brother's  ox  or 
his  ass,  but  a  brother  himself,  was  lying  in  his  blood,  and  they  hid 
themselves  from  him.    (Isai.  Iviii.  7.) 

"  But  a  certain  Samaritan,  as  he  journeyed,  came  where  he  was."  He 
might  have  found  the  same  excuses  for  hurrying  on  as  those  who  had 
gone  before  him  had  done,  for  no  doubt  they  did  make  excuses  to  them- 
selves, — they  did,  in  some  way  or  other,  justify  their  neglect  to  their  own 
consciences  ;  as  perhaps  they  said  that  there  was  danger  where  one  out- 
rage had  happened,  of  another  happening, — that  the  robbers,  probably, 
were  not  far  distant,  and  might  return  at  any  moment, — or  that  the 
sufferer  was  beyond  the  help  of  man, — or  that  he  who  was  found  near 
him  might  himself  be  accused  of  having  been  his  murderer.  The  Sa- 
maritan was  exposed  to  at  least  the  same  danger  in  all  these  respects,  as 
those  that  had  passed  before  him,  but  he  took  not  counsel  of  these  selfish 
fears,  for  when  he  saw  the  wounded  and  bleeding  man,  "  he  had  compas- 
sion on  him.^'  *  While  the  priest  and  Levite, — marked  out  as  those 
who  should  have  been  foremost  in  showing  pity  and  exercising  mercy, — 
were  forgetful  of  the  commonest  duties  of  humanity,  it  was  left  to  the  ex- 
communicated Samaritan,  whose  very  name  was  a  by- word  of  contempt 
among  the  Jews,  and  synonymous  with  heretic,  (John  viii.  48,)  to  show 
what  love  was ;  and  this,  not  as  was  required  of  them,  to  a  fellow, 
countryman,  but  to  one  of  an  alien  f  and  hostile  race, — one  of  a  people 

*  This  compassion,  as  the  best  thing  he  gave,  is  mentioned  first,  for  Gregory  the 
Great  says  with  great  beauty  (Moral.,  1.  20,  c.  36)  :  Exteriora  etenirn  iargiens,  rem 
extra  semetipsum  praebuit.  Qui  autera  fletum  et  compassionem  proximo  tribuit,  ei 
aliquid  etiam  de  semetipso  dedit. 

t  Our  Lord  calls  the  Samaritan  a  stranger,  (aXXoytyiis,  Luke  xvii.  18,)  one  of  a  dif- 
ferent stock.  It  is  very  curious  how  the  notion  of  the  Samaritans,  as  being  a  mingled 
people,  composed  of  two  elements,  one  heathen  and  one  Israelitish,  should  of  late  uni- 
versally have  found  way  not  merely  into  popular  but  into  learned  books  ;  so  that  they  are 
often  spoken  of  as,  in  a  great  measure,  the  later  representatives  of  the  ten  tribes.  Chris- 
tian antiquity  knew  nothing  of  this  view  of  their  origin,  but  saw  in  them  a  people  ofun- 
mingled  heathen  blood  ;  (see  testimonies  in  Suicer's  Thes.,  s.  v.  Hiajxapcirns,  to  which 
may  be  added  Theophylact  on  Luke  xvii.  15,  'Aainptoi  yap  ol  Eo^ap£iVa<  ;)  and  the 
Scripture  itself  affords  no  countenance  whatever  for  this  view,  but  much  that  makes 
against  it.  In  2  Kin.  xvii.,  where  the  deportation  of  the  Israelites  is  related,  there  is 
not  a  word  to  make  us  suppose  that  any  were  left,  or  that  there  was  any  blending  of 


THE  GOOD  SAMARITAN.  247 

that  had  no  dealings  with  his  people, — that  anathematized  them  ; — even 
as,  no  doubt,  all  the  influences  with  which  he  had  been  surrounded  from 
his  youth,  would  have  led  him,  as  far  as  he  yielded  to  them,  to  repay 
hate  with  hate,  and  insult  with  insult,  and  wrong  with  wrong.  For  if 
the  Jew  called  the  Samaritan  a  Cuthite, — an  idolater  who  worshipped 
the  image  of  a  dove, — and  cursed  him  publicly  in  his  synagogue, — and 
prayed  that  he  might  have  no  portion  in  the  resurrection  of  life, — and 
proclaimed  that  his  testimony  was  worth  nothing  and  might  not  be  re- 
ceived,— that  he  who  entertained  a  Samaritan  in  his  house,  was  laying 
up  judgments  for  his  children, — that  to  eat  a  morsel  of  his  fare  was  as 

the  Cuthites  and  other  Assyrian  colonists  that  were  brought  in,  with  a  remnant  of  the 
original  inhabitants,  whom  they  found  slill  in  the  land.     It  is  true  that  when  Judah 
was  carried  away  captive,  many  of  the  people  were  left  still  in  the  land  :  but  we  can 
easily  explain  why  they  should  have  been  thus  differently  dealt  with  ;  their  sins  com- 
paratively were  smaller,  and  the  Lord  moreover  had  a  purpose  of  bringing  back  the 
captivity  of  Judah.     Winer  {Real  WOrterbuch,  s.  v.  Samaritaner)  says  that  it  is  very 
unlikely  that  some  out  of  the  ten  tribes  were  not  left  behind  in  the  same  manner.     But 
2  Kin.  xxi.  13,  seems  to  give  the  strongest  testimony  that  there  were  none  whatever. 
For  there  the  Lord  threatening  Judah  says,  "  I  will  stretch  over  Jerusalem  the  line  of 
Samaria  and  the  plummet  of  the  house  of  Ahah,  and  I  will  wipe  Jerusalem  as  a  man 
wipeth  a  dish,  and   turneth  it  upside   down."     This,  which  was  only  a  threat  against 
Judah,  in  part  averted  by  repentance,  had  actually  been  executed  against   Samaria. 
(See  Jer.  vii.  15.)     That  such  an  entire  clearance  of  a  conquered  territory  was  not 
unusual,  we  may  see  from   Herod.  3.  140  :  6.  31.     For  an  account  of  the  process  by 
which  it  was  sometimes  effected,  and  which  the  Persians  may  well  have  learnt  from 
their  Babylonian  and  Assyrian  forerunners  in  empire,  see  p.  110,  note.     The  historian 
describes  a  Greek  island  which  had  undergone  the  process,  as  being  delivered  to  a 
new  lord,£pi7pi;  iovaav  dv^pwv.     If  the  Samaritans  had  owned  any  Jewish  blood  in  their 
veins,  they  would  certainly  have  brought  this  forward,  as  mightily  strengthening  their 
claim  to  be  allowed  to  take  part  with  Zerubbabel  and  Ezra,  and  the  returned  Jewish 
exiles,  in  the  rebuilding  of  the  temple  ;  but  they  only  say,  "  We  seek  your  God  as  ye 
do,  and  we  do  sacrifice  unto  him  since  the   days  of  Esarhaddon,  king  of  Assur,  which 
brought  us  up  hither."   (Ezra  iv.  2.)     When  our  Lord,  at  the  first  sending  out  of  his 
apostles,  said, "  Into  any  city  of  the  Samaritans  enter  ye  not,"  (Matt.  x.  5,)  he  was  not, 
as  some  tell  us,  yielding  to  popular  prejudice,  but  gave  the  prohibition  because,  till 
the  Gospel  had  been  first   offered  to  the  Jews,  "  to  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of 
Israel,"  they  had  no  more  claim  to  it  than  any  other  Gentiles,  being  as  much  dX- 
\oywcXi,  (Josephus  calls  them  dWotOveis,)  as  any  other  heathen.      What  is  singular 
is,  that  the  mistake  is  altogether  of  recent  origin ;  the  expositors  of  two  hundred  years 
ago  are  quite  clear  of  it.      Hammond  speaks  of  the  Samaritan  in  our  parable,  as 
"  being  of  an  Assyrian  extraction ;"   and    Maldonatus  ;  Samaritani  origine    Chaldcei 
erant ;  and  Reland,  De  Samaritanis ;   and  many  more.     For  the  opinion  of  Mak- 
rizi,  the  very  accurate  and  learned  Arabian  geographer,  concerning  the  origin  of  the 
Samaritans,  an  opinion  altogether  agreeing  with  that  here  stated,  see  S.  de  Sacy's 
Chrest.  Arabe,  v.  2,  p.  177.     And  Robinson,  in  his  Biblical  Researches,  speaking  of  the 
Samaritans,  says,  "  The  physiognomy  of  those  we  saw  was  not  Jewish." 


248  THE  GOOD  SAMARITAN. 

eating  swine's  flesh — and  in  general  would  rather  sufler  any  need  than 
be  beholden  to  him  for  the  smallest  office  of  charity ;  the  Samaritan 
was  not  behindhand  in  cursing,  nor  yet  in  active  demonstrations  of  en- 
mity and  ill  will.  We  are  not  without  evidences  of  this  in  the  Gospels, 
(John  iv.  9;  Luke  ix.  53,)  and  from  other  sources  more  examples  of 
their  spite  may  be  gathered.  While,  for  instance,  the  Jews  were  in  the 
habit  of  communicating  the  exact  time  of  the  new  moon  to  those  at  a 
distance  from  Jerusalem,  by  fires  kindled  on  the  highest  mountain  tops, 
they  would  give  the  signal  on  the  day  preceding  the  right  one,  so  to 
perplex  and  mislead.*  And  Josephus  mentions  that  they  sometimes  pro- 
ceeded much  further  than  merely  to  refuse  hospitality  to  the  Jews  who 
were  going  up  to  the  feasts  at  Jerusalem, — that  they  fell  upon  and  mur- 
dered many  of  them — and  once,  which  must  have  been  to  them  most 
horrible  of  all,  a  Samaritan  entering  Jerusalem  secretly,  polluted  the 
whole  temple,  by  scattering  in  it  human  bones. f 

But  the  heart  of  this  Samaritan  was  not  hardened,  though  so  many 
influences  must  have  been  at  work  to  harden  and  to  steel  it  against 
the  needs  and  distresses  of  a  Jew.  Exceedingly  touching  is  here  the 
minuteness  with  which  all  the  details  of  his  tender  care  toward  the  poor 
and  unknown  stranger,  of  whom  all  he  knew  was,  that  he  belonged  to  a 
nation  bitterly  hostile  to  his  own,  are  given.  He  "  bound  up  his 
wounds/'  no  doubt  with  stripes  torn  from  his  own  garments,  having  first 
poured  in  wine  to  cleanse  them,  and  then  oil  to  assuage  their  smart,  and 
to  bring  gently  the  sides  of  them  together,  these  two  being  costly  but 
well  known  and  highly  esteemed  remedies  throughout  the  East.:}:  All 
this  must  have  consumed  no  little  time,  and  this  too  while  there  was 
every  motive  to  hasten  onward.  But  after  thus  he  had  ministered  to  the 
wounded  man's  most  urgent  needs,  and  revived  in  him  the  dying  spark 
of  life,  he  "  set  him  on  his  own  beast,  and  brought  him  to  an  inn,"  and 
there  a"-ain  renewed  his  care  and  attention.  Nor  even  so  did  he  ac- 
count that  he  had  done  all,  but  before  he  departed  on  the  morrow,  with 
the  considerate  foresight  of  love,  he  provided  for  the  further  wants  of 
the  sufferer — "  he  took  out  two  pence  and  gave  them  to  the  host,  and  said 
unto  him.  Take  care  of  him,  and  whatsoever  thou  spendest  more,  lohen  I 
come  again,  /§  will  repay  thee." 

*  This  fact  is  mentioned  by  Makrizi,  (see  S.  de  Sacy's  Chrest.  Arahe,  v.  2,  p. 
159,)  who  affirms  that  it  was  this  which  put  the  Jews  on  making  accurate  calcula- 
tion to  determine  the  moment  of  the  new  moon's  appearance.  Cf.  ScnoEXTGEN's  Hot. 
Ife6.,v.  l,p.344. 

t  Josephus,  Antt.,  18.  2.  2. 

t  See  Isai.  i.  6.  Puny, //.  iV.,  1.  31,  c.  47.  Both  Greek  and  Latin  physicians 
commended  vinegar  and  oil,  or  wine  and  oil,  to  be  used  in  cases  of  bruises  and  wounds. 

§  Let  us  not  miss  the  tyili  dnoiuxru,  "/will  repay  thee."     Trouble  not  the  poor 


THE  GOOD  SAMARITAN.  249 

Beautiful  as  is  this  parable  when  thus  taken  simply  according  to  the 
letter,  and  full  of  incentives  to  active  mercy  and  love,  bidding  us  to 
"  put  on  bowels  of  mercies,"  to  be  kind  and  tender-hearted,  yet  how 
much  lovelier  still,  provoking  how  much  more  strongly  still  to  love  and 
good  works,  when,  with  most  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Church,  with  many 
too  of  the  Reformers,  we  trace  in  it  a  deeper  meaning  still,  and  see  the 
work  of  Christ,  of  the  merciful  Son  of  man  himself,  pourtrayed  to  us 
here.  It  has  been  objected  to  this  interpretation,  that  it  makes  the  pa- 
rable to  be  nothing  to  the  matter  immediately  in  hand.  But  this  is  a 
mistake  ;  for  what  is  that  matter  ?  To  magnify  the  law  of  love,  to  show 
who  fulfils  it,  and  who  not.  Inasmuch  then  as  Christ  himself,  he  who 
accounted  himself  every  man's  brother,  in  its  largest  extent  fulfilled  it, 
showed  how  we  ought  to  love  and  whom  ;  and  inasmuch  as  it  is  his  ex- 
ample, or  rather  faith  in  his  love  towards  us,  which  is  alone  really  ef- 
fectual in  causing  us  to  "  love  one  another  with  a  pure  heart  fervently,'" 
he  might  well  propose  himself  and  his  act  in  succouring  the  perishing 
humanity,  as  the  everlasting  pattern  of  self-denying  and  self- forgetting 
love,  and  bring  it  out  in  strongest  contrast  with  the  selfish  carelessness 
and  neglect  of  the  present  leaders  of  the  theocracy.  They  had  not 
strengthened  the  diseased,  nor  healed  the  sick,  nor  bound  up  the  broken, 
nor  sought  that  which  was  driven  away,  (see  Ezek.  xxxiv.  4,)  while  he 
had  bound  up  the  broken-hearted,  (Isai.  Ixi.  1,)  and  poured  the  balm  of 
sweetest  consolation  into  all  wounded  spirits.  Moreover,  even  the  ad- 
versaries of  this  interpretation  must  themselves  acknowledge  the  facility 
with  which  all  the  circumstances  of  the  parable  yield  themselves  to  it; 
and  it  certainly  affords  a  strong  presumption  that  a  key  we  have  in  our 
hand  is  the  right  one,  when  it  thus  turns  in  the  lock  without  forcing, 
when  it  adapts  itself  at  once  to  all  the  wards  of  the  lock,  however  many 
and  complex.  Of  course,  this  deeper  interpretation  was  reserved  for  the 
future  edification  of  the  Church.  The  lawyer  naturally  took  and  was 
meant  to  take  the  meaning  which  lay  upon  the  surface ;  nor  will  the 
parable  lose  its  value  to  us,  as  showing  forth  the  pity  and  love  of  man  to 
his  fellow,  because  it  also  shadows  forth  the  crowning  act  of  mercy  and 
love  shown  by  the  Son  of  man  to  the  entire  race. 

The  traveller  then  is  the  personified  human  Nature,  or  Adam  as  he 
is  the  representative  and  head  of  the  race.  He  has  left  Jerusalem,  the 
heavenly  city,  the  city  of  the  vision  of  peace,  and  is  travelling  toward 
Jericho,  he  is  going  down  toward  it,  the  profane  city,  the  city  which  was 
under  a  curse.     (Josh.  vi.  26  ;   1  Kin.  xvi.  34.)     But  no  sooner  has  he 

man  upon  that  score ;  I  will  take  those  charges  on  myself;    or  it  might  be,  Fear 
not  thou  to  be  a  loser ;  /  will  be  thy  paymaster. 

17 


250  THE  GOOD   SAMARITAN. 

forsaken  the  holy  city  and  the  presence  of  his  God,  and  turned  his  de- 
sires toward  the  world,  than  he  falls  under  the  power  of  him  who  is  at 
once  a  robber  and  a  murderer,  (John  viii.  44,)  and  by  him  and  his  evil 
angels  is  stripped  of  the  robe  of  his  original  righteousness ;  nor  this 
only,  but  grievously  wounded,  left  full  of  wounds  and  almost  mortal 
strokes,  every  sin  a  gash  from  which  the  life-blood  of  his  soul  is  copiously 
flowing.*  Yet  is  he  at  the  same  time  not  altogether  dead  ;f  for  as  all 
the  cares  of  the  good  Samaritan  would  have  been  expended  in  vain  upon 
the  poor  traveller,  had  the  spark  of  life  been  wholly  extinct,  so  a  re- 
covery for  man  would  have  been  impossible,  if  there  had  been  nothing 
to  recover,  no  spark  of  divine  life,  which  by  an  heavenly  breath  might 
again  be  fanned  into  flame — no  truth  which,  though  detained  in  un- 
righteousness, might  yet  be  delivered  and  extricated  from  it.  When  the 
angels  fell,  as  it  was  by  a  free  self-determining  act  of  their  own  will, 
with  no  solicitation  from  without,  from  that  moment  they  were  not  as 
one  half-dead,  but  altogether  so,  and  no  redemption  was  possible  for  them. 
But  man  is  "  half  dead  ;" — he  has  still  a  conscience  witnessing  for  God  j 
evil  is  not  his  good,  however  little  he  may  be  able  to  resist  its  tempta- 
tions ;  he  has  still  the  sense  that  he  has  lost  something,  and  at  times  a 
longing  for  the  restoration  of  the  lost.  His  case  is  desperate  as  concerns 
himself  and  his  own  power  to  restore  himself,  but  not  desperate,  if  taken 
in  hand  by  an  almighty  and  all-merciful  Physician. 

And  who  else  but  such  a  Divine  Physician  shall  give  him  back  what 
he  has  lost,  shall  heal  and  bind  up  the  bleeding  hurts  of  his  soul  ?  Can 
the  law  do  it  ?  The  apostle  answers,  it  could  not ;  "  if  there  had  been 
a  law  which  could  have  given  life,  verily  righteousness  should  have 
been  by  the  law."  (Gal.  iii  21.:}:)    The  law  was  like  Elisha's  staff',  which 

*  H.  de  Sto  Victore  (Annott.  in  Luc.) :  Homo  iste... .genus  designat  humanum, 
quod  in  piimis  parentibus  supernam  civitatem  deserens,  in  hujus  seculi  et  exilii  mis- 
eriam  per  culpam  corniens ;  per  antiqui  hostis  fraudulentiam  veste  innocentiae  et  im- 
mortalitatis  est  spoliatum,  et  originalis  culpae  vitiis  graviter  vulneratum.  See  Am- 
brose, Exp.  in  Luc,  1.  7,  c.  73  ;  Augustine,  Eriarr.  in  Ps.  cxxv.  6,  and  the  ser- 
mon {Horn.  34,  in  Luc.)  which  Jerome  has  translated  out  of  Origan.  For  the  later 
Gnostic  perversions  of  the  parable  in  this  direction,  see  Neander,  Kirch.  Gesch.,  v. 
5,  p.  1121. 

t  H.  de  Sto  Victore :  Quamvis  enim  tanta  malitiS  possit  affici  ut  nihil  diiigat  boni 

non  tanien  ignorantia  tanta  exciecari  potest,  ut  nihil  cognoscat  boni Hostilis  gladius 

hominem  penitus  non  extinxit,  dum  in  eo  naturalis  boni  dignitatem  omnino  delere 
non  potuit.  Augustine  {Qucest.  Evang.,  1.  2,  qu.  19)  :  Ex  parte  quA  potest  intelligere 
et  cognoscere  Deum,  vivus  est  homo  ;  ex  parte  qua  peccatis  contabescit  et  premitur, 
mortuus  est. 

I  The  selection  of  this  passage.  Gal.  iii.  16-23,  for  the  Epistle  on  the  Sunday 
(the  thirteenth  after  Trinity),  when  this  parable  supplies  the  Gospel,  shows  I  think, 


THE  GOOD   SAMARITAN.  251 

might  be  laid  on  the  face  of  the  dead  child,  but  life  did  not  return  to  it 
the  more;  (2  Kin.  iv.  21;)  Elisha  himself  must  come  ere  the  child  re- 
vive.* Or  as  Theophylact  here  expresses  it :  "  The  law  came  and 
stood  over  him  where  he  lay,  but  then,  overcome  by  the  greatness  of  his 
wounds,  and  unable  to  heal  them,  departed."  Nor  could  the  sacrifices 
do  better ;  they  could  not  "  make  the  comers  thereunto  perfect,''  nor  "  take 
away  sins,"  nor  "  purge  the  conscience."  The  law,  whether  natural 
Or  revealed,  could  not  quicken,  neither  could  the  sacrifices  truly  abolish 
guilt  and  reconcile  us  unto  God.  The  priest  and  the  Levite  were  alike 
powerless  to  help  :  so  that  in  the  eloquent  words  of  a  scholar  of  St.  Ber- 
nard's,f  many  passed  us  by,  and  there  v/as  none  to  save.  That  great 
patriarch,  Abraham,  passed  us  by,  for  he  justified  not  others,  but  was 
himself  justified  in  the  faith  of  one  to  come.  Moses  passed  us  bv,  for 
he  was  not  the  giver  of  grace,  but  of  the  law,  and  of  that  law  which 
leads  none  to  perfection :  for  righteousness  is  not  by  the  law.  Aaron 
passed  us  by,  the  priest  passed  us  by,  and  by  those  sacrifices  which  he 
continually  offered,  was  unable  to  purge  the  conscience  from  dead  works 
to  serve  the  living  God.  Patriarch  and  prophet  and  priest  passed  us  by, 
helpless  both  in  will  and  deed,  for  they  themselves  also  lay  wounded  in 
that  wounded  man.  Only  that  true  Samaritan  beholding  was  moved 
with  compassion,  as  he  is  all  compassion,  and  poured  oil  into  the  wounds, 
that  is,  himself  into  the  hearts,  purifying  all  hearts  by  failh.  Therefore 
the  faith  of  the  Church  passes  by  all,  till  it  reaches  him  who  alone 
would  not  pass  it  by.":}:     (Rom.  viii.  3.) 

very  clearly,  the  interpretation  which  the  Church  puts  upon  the  parable.  The  Gos- 
pel and  Epistle  agree  in  the  same  thing,  that  the  law  cannot  quicken,  that  righte- 
ousness is  not  by  it,  but  by  faith  in  Christ  Jesus. 

*  Au(jUSTiNE,  Enarr.in  Ps.  Ixx.  15. 

t  Gillebert.  His  works  are  to  be  found  at  the  beginning  of  the  ser.ond  volume  of 
the  Benedictine  edition  of  St.  Bernard.  He  carried  on  and  completed  the  exposition 
of  the  Canticles  which  Bernard  had  left  unfinished  at  bis  death. — Compare  a  noble 
passage  in  Clemens  Alex.,  Quis  Dives  Salv  ,  c  29.  Tis  6'  av  liXXoi  dn  jrArji/  airdg  6 
Eurijp  ;  I)  7-ij  fiaXXov  fifiSs  i.\i!)<jai  tKcivov,  Tovi  vno  rwi/  KO(jfiOKpiir6p(ov  tov  okotovs  oXiyov  reda- 
vaTutjilvovq  TOif  jroAXoi's  rpavjiaiji^  (p60:ns,  intdiiniati,  d^yuTf,  XuTraif,  diraTats,  riJcwur?  :  tovtcjv 
Se.  Tcov  TpavjioLTiisv  jioiio;  iarpos  'IijToiif,  iKKOnTwv  apSriv  ra  tiAdri  -rrp-p'^i^a  •  ovk  Mairap  o  vdjinq  !//(Aii 
TO  dnoTeXcafiaTa,  rovi  Kapnovi  tmv  vovripMV  'pvrui-,  dXXa  rriv  d^ivriv  rnv  tavrov  irpof  rhf  jtilaq  rrj; 
xaKias  TTpoaayayuv '  ovtos  b  tov  oivov,t6  aifta  tTs  djiviXov  tov  AaffiS,  £«-;\;fjj  rmTv  Itt'i  rixi  tc- 
Tpoijievai  ipvxc^Si  »  ""fi  ck  (nrXdy^vwv  nvevjiaroi  cXaiov  KpixrcveyKMi/  ku!  iKtiaxpiXcvo/tcvos  ■  oiroi  b 
Tois  TTii  vyeia;  Kai  <rb>Tripias  Jeo-fcoiif  dXvTovs  iiriSei^'is,  dyonTr,v,  tt'kttiv,  iXiiiia  •  ovros  o  iiavoveTv 
dyyeXovi  Kai  dpx^i  lal  l^ovoias  fiptv  vnord^as  em  ^tydXrj  iiiaCu)  Si6ti  kuI  uvtoI  eXevdtpotOiieovTai 
diro  r<jj  fiaTaiorriTos  tov  Koanov  jrapa  riji/  dwoKuXvipiv  rij;  Ja^/jj  tcov  vluiv  tov  Ocov. 

t  The  argument  that  Augustine  uses  more  than  once  (as  Senn.  171,  c.  2,)  in  proof 
that  our  Lord  intended  himself  to  be  understood  by  this  Samaritan,  is  sinsular.  He 
argues  thus:  Ciim  duo  essent  verba  conviciosa  objecta  Domino,  dictumque  illi  esset 


252  THE  GOOD  SAMARITAN. 

If  it  is  absolutely  needful  to  give  a  precise  meaning  to  the  oil  and  the 
wine,  we  might  say,  with  Chrysostom,  that  the  wine  is  the  blood  of  Passion, 
the  oil  the  anointing  of  the  Holy  Spirit.*  On  the  binding  up  of  the 
wounds,  one  might  observe  that  the  sacraments  are  often  spoken  of  in 
the  language  of  the  early  Church  as  the  ligaments  for  the  wounds  of  the 
soul."}"  It  is  moreover  a  common  image  in  the  Old  Testament  for  the 
healing  of  all  spiritual  hurts.:}:  When  we  find  the  Samaritan  setting  the 
wounded  man  on  his  own  beast,  and  therefore  of  necessity  himself 
pacing  on  foot  by  his  side,§  we  can  scarcely  help  drawing  a  comparison 
with  him,  who  though  he  was  rich,  yet  for  our  sakes  became  poor,  that 
we  through  his  poverty  might  be  rich, — the  Son  of  man  who  came  not 
to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister — "  who  his  own  self  bare  our  sins  in 
his  own  body."  Neither  is  it  far-fetched  to  see  in  the  inn  the  figure  of 
the   Church,  the  place   of  spiritual   refection,  in  which   the   healing  of 

Samaritanus  es  et  daemonium  habes,  poterat  respondere  :  Nee  Samaritanus  sum,  nee 
dffimonium  habeo  :  respondet  autem,  Ego  daemonium  non  habeo.  Quod  respondit,  re- 
futavit :  quod  tacuit,  confirmavit.     Cf.  Enarr.  in  Ps.  exxxvi.  3. 

*  They  were  sometimes  interpreted  differently  ;  the  oil  as  the  blanda  consolatlo, 
the  wine  as  the  austera  increpatio.  Thus  Bernard  says  of  the  good  pastor:  Samarita- 
nus sit,  custodiens  et  observans  quando  oleum  misericordiae,  quando  vinum  fervoris  ex- 
hibeat ;  and  beautifully,  and  at  more  length.  In  Cant.,  Serm.  44,  3.  So  too  Gregory 
the  Great,  {Moral.,  1.20,  e.  5) :  Inesse  rectoribus  debet  et  juste  consolans  misericordia, 
et  pie  saeviens  disciplina.  Hinc  est  quod  semivivi  illius  vulneribus,  qui  a  Samarita- 
no  in  stabulum  ductus  est,  et  vinum  adhibetur  et  oleum ;  ut  per  vinum  mordeantur 
vulnera,  per  oleum  foveanlur  :  quatenus  unusquisque  qui  sanandis  vulneribus  praeest, 
in  vino  morsum  districtionis  adhibeat,in  oleo  mollitiem  pietatis:  per  vinum  mundentur 
putrida,  per  oleum  sananda  foveantur.  And  very  beautiful  is  the  prayer  into  which  in 
another  place  he  has  resolved  this  whole  history  {Exp.  in  Ps.  li) :  Utinam,  Domine 
Jesu,  ad  me  misericordia  motus,  digneris  accedere,  qui  descendens  ab  Jerusalem  in 
Jericho,  proruens  scilicet  de  summis  ad  infima,  de  vitalibus  ad  infirma,  in  angelos 
tenebrarum  incidi,  qui  non  solum  gratiae  spiritalis  mihi  vestimentum  abstulerunt,  sed 
etiam  plagis  impositis  semivivum  reliquerunt.  Utinam  peccatorum  meorum  vulnera, 
data  mihi  recuperandae  salutis  fiducia,  alliges,  ne  dcterius  saeviant,  si  sanari  desperent. 
Utinam  oleum  mihi  remissionis  adhibeas,  et  vinum  compunctionis  infundas.  Quod  si 
in  jumentum  tuum  me  imposueris,  de  tenk  inopem,  pauperem  de  stercore  suscitabis. 
Tu  es  enim  qui  peccata  nostra  pertulisti,  qui  pro  nobis  quae  non  rapueras  exsolvisti. 
Si  in  stabulum  me  Ecclesiae  tuae  duxeris,  eorporis  et  sanguinis  tui  me  refectione  cibabis. 
Si  curam  mei  egeria,  nee  prsEcepta  tua  praetereo,  nee  frementiuni  rabiem  bestiarum  in- 
curro.  Custodia  enim  tuft,  indigeo,  quamdiu  carnem  banc  corruptibilem  porto.  Audi 
ergo  me,  Samaritane,  spoliatum  et  vulneratum,  flentem  et  gementem,  invocantem  et 
cum  David  clamantem  Miserere  mei,  Deus,  secundiiim  magnam  misericordiam  tuam. 

t  Augustine  not  precisely  so :  AUigatio  vulnerum  est  eohibitio  peccatorum  ;  the 
staunching  of  the  ever-flowing  fountain  of  evil  in  the  heart. 

J  Cf.  Ps.  CXlvi.  3.  (LXX)  :  'O  lionevoi  rovi  cvvTCTpiixhovi  Tiiv  KapSiav,  Koi  icafitiwv  ra 
oWTpijUidTOi  avT&v. 

§  Lyser :  Sue  quasi  incommode  nostra  commoda  quaesivit. 


THE  GOOD   SAMARITAN.  253 

souls  is  ever  going  forward, — by  some  called  on  this  last  account  an 
hospital, — whither  the  merciful  Son  of  man  brings  all  those  whom  he 
has  rescued  from  the  hand  of  Satan,  and  in  which  he  cares  for  them 
evermore.*  In  harmony  with  this  we  find  Christ's  work  continually  set 
forth  in  Scripture  as  a  work  of  healing;  for  instance,  Mai.  iv.  2  ;  Hos^ 
xiv.  4  ;  Ps.  ciii.  3 ;  Matt.  xiii.  15  ;  Rev.  xxii.  2  ;  and  typically,  Num. 
xxi.  9. 

And  if,  like  the  Samaritan,  who  was  obliged  on  the  morrow  to  take 
his  departure,!  he  is  not  always  in  body  present  with  those  whose  cure 
he  has  begun,  if  for  other  reasons  it  is  expedient  even  for  them  that  he 
should  go  away,  yet  he  makes  a  rich  provision  of  grace  for  them  dur- 
ing his  absence,  and  till  the  time  of  his  coming  again.  It  would  be  en- 
tering into  curious  minutise,  which  rather  tend  to  bring  discredit  on  this 
scheme  of  interpretation,  to  affirm  decidedly  of  the  two  pence,  that  they 
mean  either  the  two  sacraments,  or  the  two  testaments,  or  the  word  and 
the  sacraments,  or  unreservedly  to  accede  to  any  other  of  the  ingenious 
explanations  which  have  been  offered  for  them.  It  is  sufficient  that 
they  signify  all  gifts  and  graces,  sacraments,  powers  of  healing,  of 
remission  of  sins,  or  other  powers  which  Christ  has  left  with  his  Church 
to  enable  it  to  keep  house  for  him  till  his  return.  As  the  Samaritan 
look  out  two  pence  and  gave  them  to  the  host,  and  said,  "  Take  care  of 
Mm;" — even  so  the  Lord  Jesus  said  unto  Peter,  and  in  him,  to  all  his 
fellow  apostles,  having  first  promised  unto  them  heavenly  gifts,  and 
richly  furnished  them  for  their  work,  "  Feed  my  sheep,"  "  Feed  my 
lambs."  To  them,  and  in  them  to  all  that  succeed  them,  he  has  com- 
mitted an  economy  of  the  truth,  that  as  stewards  of  the  mysteries  of 
God,  they  may  dispense  those  mysteries  as  shall  seem  best  for  the 
health  and  salvation  of  his  people.  And  as  it  was  said  to  the  host, 
"  Whatsoever  thou  spendest  more,  when  I  come  again,  I  will  repay  thee  /":}: 
so  the  Lord  has  promised  that  no  labour  shall  be  in  vain  in  him — that 
he  will  count  what  is  done  to  the  least  of  his  brethren,  as  done  unto 
him — that  they  who  "  feed  the  flock  of  God,"  not  by  constraint  but  will- 
ingly ;  not  for  filthy  lucre,  but  of  a  ready  mind," — they,  "  when  the 
chief  Shepherd  shall  appear,"  "  shall  receive  a  crown  of  glory  that 
fadeth  not  away."     (1  Pet.  v.  2,  4.)§ 

*  Augustine  brings  out  another  side  of  the  similitude :  Stabulum  est  Ecclesia,  ubi 
reficiuntur  viatores  de  peregrinatione  redeuntes  in  aeternam  patriam  ;  or  it  is  an  inn 
{navSo'x^uov),  because  (Origen,  Horn.  34  in  Luc.)  universes  volentes  introire  suspiciat. 

t  Ambrose  {Exp.  in  Luc,  1.  7,  c.  78) :  Non  vacabat  Samaritano  huic  diu  in  terris 
degere  ;  redeundum  eo  erat,  unde  descenderat. 

X  Melanclhon  :  Si  quid  supererogaveris,  solvam  ;  quasi  dicat :  Accedunt  labores, 
pericula,  inopia  consilii,  in  his  omnibus  adero  et  juvabo  te. 

§  Cyprian's  apph'cation  of  the  parable  {Ep.  51)  forms  a  sort  of  connecting  link  be- 


254  THE  GOOD  SAMARITAN. 

It  is  difficult  enough  to  admire  the  divine  wisdom  with  which  the 
Saviour,  having  brought  to  an  end  tht  affecting  parable,  reverses  the 
question  of  the  lawyer,  and  asks,  "  Which  now  of  these  three  thinkest 
thou  loas  neighbour  unto  him  that  fell  among  the  thieves  ?"  The  lawyer 
had  asked,  "  who  is  the  neighbour  to  whom  I  am  bound  to  show  the  ser- 
vice of  love  ?"  But  the  Lord  asks,  "  Who  is  a  neighbour,  he  who  shows 
love,  or  he  who  shows  it  not?" — for  herein  lay  the  great  lesson,  that  it  is 
not  the  object  which  is  to  determine  the  love,  but  that  love  has  its  own 
measure  in  itself;  it  is  like  the  sun  which  does  not  ask  on  what  it  shall 
shine,  or  what  it  shall  warm,  but  shines  and  warms  by  the  very  law 
of  its  own  being,  so  that  there  is  nothing  hidden  from  its  light  and  from 
its  heat.  The  lawyer  had  said,  "  Declare  to  me  my  neighbour  ;  what 
marks  a  man  to  be  such  ? — is  it  one  faith,  one  blood,  the  bonds  of  mutual 
benefits,  or  what  else,  that  I  may  know  to  whom  I  owe  this  debt  of  love  ?" 
The  Lord  rebukes  the  question  by  holding  up  before  him  a  man,  and  this 
a  despised  Samaritan,  who  so  far  from  asking  that  question,  freely  and 
largely  exercised  love  towards  one  who  certainly  had  none  of  the  signs 
such  as  the  lawyer  conceived  would  mark  out  a  neighbour  in  his  sense 
of  the  word.  The  parable  is  a  reply,  not  to  the  question,  for  to  that  it 
is  no  reply,*  but  to  the  spirit  out  of  which  the  question  proceeded.  It 
says,  "You  ask  who  is  your  neighbour  ?  I  will  show  you  a  man  who 
asked  not  that  question,  and  then  your  own  heart  shall  be  judge  between 
you  and  him,  which  had  most  of  the  mind  of  God,  which  was  most  truly 
the  doer  of  his  will,  the  imitator  of  his  perfections."  The  parable  is  an 
appeal  to  a  better  principle  in  the  querist's  heart,  from  the  narrow  and 
unloving  theories  and  systems  in  which  he  had  been  trained.  It  is  to  be 
hoped  that  through  no  unwillingness  to  acknowledge  the  truth,  though 


tween  these  two  interpretations,  the  literal  and  the  allegorical :  the  wounded  man  is  a 
sinning  brother,  in  this  particular  case  one  who  had  not  stood  stedfast  in  the  time  of 
persecution.  Cyprian,  who  desired  to  follow  the  milder  course  with  these  lapsed,  and 
to  readmit  them  to  Church  communion,  exclaims:  Jacet  ecce  saucius  frater  ab  adver- 
sario  in  acie  vulneratus.  Inde  diabolus  conatur  occidere,  quem  vulneravit,  hinc  Christus 
liortatur  ne  in  totum  pereat  quem  redemit.  Cui  de  duobus  assistemus,  in  cujus  parti- 
bus  stamus?  Utrumne  diabolo  favemus  ut  perimat,  et  semianiniem  fratrem  jacentem, 
sicut  in  evangelio  sacerdos  et  Leviles,  praeterimus?  An  vero  ut  sacerdotes  Dei  et 
Christi,  quod  Christus  et  docuit  et  fecit  imitantes,  vulneratum  de  adversarii  faucibus 
rapimus,  ut  curatum  Deo  judici  reservemus.  Cf.  Ambrose,  De  Poenit.,  1.  1,  c.  6  ;  and 
Chrysostom,  Adv.  Jud.,  Oral.  8,  3. 

*  Maldonatus  is  the  only  commentator  I  have  seen  who  has  fairly  put  this,  and 
acknowledged  the  difficulty  which  is  on  the  face  of  the  parable.  It  is  one  of  the  many 
merits  of  this  most  intolerant  and  most  abusive  Jesuit,  (Maldonatus  maledicentissimus,) 
that  he  never  slights  a  difficulty,  nor  pretends  not  to  see  it,  but  fairly  and  fully  states  it, 
whether  he  can  lesolve  it  or  not. 


THE  FRIEND  AT  MIDNIGHT.  255 

it  has  something  of  that  appearance,  the  lawyer  in  reply  to  the  Lord's 
question,  Who  was  this  poor  man's  true  neighbour  ?  circuitously  replies, 
"He  ivho  showed  mercy  on  hi/n  ;^'  grudging  to  give  the  honour  directly 
and  by  name  to  a  Samaritan.*  But  having  acknowledged  this,  whether 
grudgingly  or  freely,  "  Go,''  said  the  Lord  to  him,  now  we  trust  an 
humbler  and  larger-hearted  man,  "  Go,  and  do  thou  likewise." 

These  last  words  will  hardly  allow  one  to  agree  with  those,  who  in 
later  times  have  maintained  that  this  parable  and  the  discourse  that  led 
to  it,  are  in  fact,  a  lesson  on  justification  by  faith — that  the  Lord  sent 
the  questioner  to  the  law,  to  the  end  that,  being  by  that  convinced  of  sin 
and  of  his  own  short-comings,  he  might  discover  his  need  of  a  Saviour. 
His  intention  seemed  rather  to  make  the  lawyer  aware  of  the  great  gulf 
which  lay  between  his  knowing  and  his  doing, — how  little  his  actual  ex- 
ercise of  love  kept  pace  with  his  intellectual  acknowledgment  of  the  debt 
of  love  due  from  him  to  his  fellow-men  :  on  which  subject  no  doubt  he 
had  secret  misgivings  himself,  when  he  asked,  "  Who  is  my  neighbour  ?" 
It  is  true  indeed  that  this  our  sense  of  how  short  our  practice  falls  of  our 
knowledge,  must  bring  us  to  the  conviction  that  we  cannot  live  by  the 
keeping  of  the  law,  that  by  the  deeds  of  the  law  no  flesh  shall  be  justified 
— so  that  here  also  we  shall  get  at  last  to  faith  as  that  which  alone  can 
justify  :  but  this  is  a  remoter  consequence,  not,  as  it  seems  to  me,  the 
immediate  purpose  of  the  parable. 


PAKABLE  XVIII. 


THE   FRIEND   AT   MIDNIGHT 


The  connexion  between  this  parable  and  the  words  that  go  before  is 
easy  to  be  traced.  The  disciples  had  asked  to  be  taught  in  what  words 
they  should  pray,  "  Lord,  teach  us  to  pray,  as  John  also  taught  his  dis- 
ciples."  He  graciously  gives  them  that  perfect  form  which  has  ever 
since  been  the  treasure  of  the  Church  :  but  having  done  so,  he  instructs 
them  also  by  this  parable  in  what  spirit  they  must  pray,  even  in  the  spi- 
rit  of  persevering  faith,  "  continuing  instant  in  prayer."  There  is  the 
same  argument  as  in  the  parable  of  the  Unjust  Judge,  one  from  the  less 

*  So  Bengel :  Non  invitus  abstinet  legisperitus  appellatione  propria  Samaritae. 


256  THE  FRIEND  AT  MIDNIGHT. 

to  the  greater,  or  more  accurately,  from  the  worse  to  the  better, — but 
with  this  difference,  that  here  the  narrow. heartedness  and  selfishness  of 
man  is  set  against  the  liberality  of  God,  while  there  it  is  his  unrighte- 
ousness which  is  tacitly  contrasted  with  the  righteousness  of  God.  The 
conclusion  is,  if  selfish  man  can  yet  be  won  by  prayer  and  importunity 
to  give,  and  unjust  man  to  do  right,  how  much  more  certainly  shall  the 
bountiful  Lord  bestow,  and  the  righteous  Lord  do  justice.*  And  per- 
haps there  is  this  further  difference,  that  here  it  is  intercessory  prayer, 
prayer  for  the  needs  of  others,  in  which  we  are  bidden  to  be  instant ;  while 
there  it  is  rather  for  our  own  needs.  Yet  must  we  not  urge  in  either 
case,  the  illustration  so  far,  as  to  conceive  of  prayer  as  though  it  were 
an  overcoming  of  God's  reluctance,  when  it  is,  in  fact,  a  laying  hold  of 
his  highest  willingness. f  For  though  there  is  an  aspect  under  which 
God  may  present  himself  io  us,  similar  to  that  of  the  Unjust  Judge  and 
this  churlish  neighbour,  yet  is  there  ever  this  difference, — that  his  is  a 
seeming  neglect  and  unwillingness  to  grant,  theirs  a  real.  Under  such 
an  aspect  of  seeming  unwillingness  to  hear,  did  the  merciful  Son  of  man 
present  himself  to  the  Syro-Phcenician  woman.  (Matt.  xv.  21.)  But 
why  ?  Not  because  he  was  reluctant  to  give,  but  because  he  knew  that 
her  faith  was  strong  enough  to  bear  this  trial,  and  that  in  the  end,  though 
the  trial  for  the  moment  might  be  hard,  it  would  prove  a  blessing  to  her, 
more  mightily  calling  out  that  faith  ;  since  faith  ever  needs  to  find  some 
resistance,  before  it  can  be  called  out  in  any  strength.  In  like  manner 
the  angel  of  the  Lord,  the  great  Covenant  Angel,  contended  with  Jacob, 
and  wrestled  with  him  all  the  night,  yet  allowed  himself  at  the  last  to  be 
overcome  by  him,  and  left  a  blessing  behind  him ;  and  Jacob  hence- 
forth was  Israel,  that  is,  was  permanently  lifted  up  through  that  conflict 
into  an  higher  state,  marked  by  that  nobler  name  which  henceforth  he 
bore, — "  for  as  a  Prince  hast  thou  power  with  God  and  with  men,  and 
hast  prevailed."     (Gen.  xxxii.  28.) 

The  parable  with  which  now  we  have  to  do  rests  on  an  humble  and 
familiar  incident  of  our  common  life  ;  and  spoken  to  humble  men,  it  may 

*  Augustine  (Ep.  130,  c.  8) :  Ut  hinc  intelligerenius,  si  dare  cogitur,  qui  cilm  dor- 
miat,  a  petente  excitatur  invitus,  quanto  det  benignius,  qui  nee  dormire  novit,  et  dor- 
mientes  nos  excitat  ut  pelamus. 

t  This  is  finely  expressed  by  Dante  {Parad.  1.  20),  in  words  which  have  as  much 
a  theological  as  a  poetical  interest  : — 

Regnuni  ccelorum  violenzia  pate 

Da  caldo  amore  e  da  viva  speranza, 

Che  vince  la  divina  volontate, 

Non  a  guisa  che  1'  uomo  all'  uom  sovranza. 

Ma  vince  lei,  perche  vuole  esser  vinta, 

E  vinta  vince  con  sua  beninanza. 


;,  THE  FRIEND  AT  MIDNIGHT.  257 

easily  have  come  within  the  limits  of  their  own  experience  :  "  Which  of 
you  shall  have  a  friend,  and  shall  go  unto  him  at  midnight,  and  say  unto 
him,  Friend,  lend  me  three  loaves  :  for  a  friend  of  mine  in  his  journey  is 
come  to  me,  and  I  have  nothing  to  set  before  him  V  I  do  not  see  in  these 
words  any  deeper  meaning  than  lies  on  the  surface  ;  yet  it  is  well  worth 
observing  that  they  have  afforded  ample  scope  for  allegorical  and  mys- 
tical interpretations,  and  some  of  these  of  considerable  beauty.  For  in- 
stance, it  has  been  said  that  the  guest  newly  arrived  is  the  spirit  of  man, 
which,  weary  of  its  wanderings  in  the  world,  of  a  sudden  desires  heav- 
enly sustenance, — something  that  will  truly  nourish  and  satisfy  it, — be- 
gins to  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness.  But  the  host,  that  is,  man, 
in  so  far  as  he  is  "  sensual,  having  not  the  Spirit,"  has  nothing  to  set  be- 
fore this  unexpected  guest,  and  in  this  his  spiritual  poverty  and  distress,* 
is  here  taught  to  appeal  unto  God,  that  from  him  he  may  receive  that 
which  is  bread  indeed,  and  spiritual  nourishment  for  the  soul.f  There 
is,  besides,  another  interesting  adaptation  of  the  parable,  which  Augus- 
tine gives.  He  is  urging  upon  his  hearers  the  duty  of  being  able  to  give 
a  reason  for  their  faith,  a  reason  not  merely  defensive,  but  one  which 
shall  win  and  persuade  :  and  this,  because  it  might  often  happen  that 
some  one  from  the  yet  heathen  world,  or  it  might  be  an  heretic,  or  even 
a  nominal  Catholic,  weary  of  his  wanderings  in  eri'or,  weary  of  the  bon- 
dage of  sin,  and  desiring  now  to  know  something  of  the  Christian  faith,  but 
lacking  confidence  or  opportunity  to  go  to  the  bishop  or  catechists,  might 
betake  himself  to  some  one  of  them,   desiring  fuller  instruction  in  the 

*  " At  7nidnight :"  In  media,  tribulatione  constitutus.     Augustine. 

t  Bede  (Horn,  in  Luc.  xi.)  :  Amicus  qui  venit  de  via,,  ipse  noster  est  animus,  qui 
toties  a  nobis  recedit,  qnoties  ad  appetenda  terrena  et  temporalia  foris  vagatur.  Redit 
ergo,  cceleslique  alimonia  refici  desiderat,  cum  in  se  reversus  superna  ccEperit  ac  spiri- 
tualia  meditari.  De  quo  pulchrfe  qui  petierat.  adjungit,  se  non  habere  quod  ponant  ante 
ilium,  quoniam  animae  post  seculi  tenebras  Deum  suspiranti,  nil  prseter  eum  cogitare 
nilque  libet  intueri.  And  Bernard  {In  Eogat.,  Serin.) :  Amicum  venientem  ad  me, 
non  alium  intelligo  quam  meipsum,  cilim  transitoria  deserens,  ad  cor  redeo.  Venit 
amicus  de  regione  longinqua,  ubi  pascere  porcos,  et  ipsorum  siliquas  insatiabiliter  esu- 
rire  solebat.  Venit  fame  laborans,  sed  heu  me  !  pauperem  eligit  hospitem,  et  vacuum 
ingreditur  habitaculum.  Quid  faciam  huic  amico  misero  et  miserabili  ?  Fateor  amicus 
est,  sed  ego  mendicus.  Quid  venisti  ad  me,  amice,  in  necessitate  tanta,?  Festina, 
inquit,  discurre,  suscita  amicum  tuum  ilium  magnum,  quo  majorem  dilectionem  nemo 
habet,  sed  neque  substantiam  ampliorem.  Clama  et  die.  Amice,  commoda  mihi  tres 
panes.  Compare  Augustine  {QutEst.  Evang.,  1.  2,  qu.  21)  ;  and  a  discourse  which  is 
not  Augustine's,  but  has  sometimes  been  attributed  to  him,  (Serm.  85,  Appendix,) 
where  the  explanation  given,  at  first  sight  seems  slightly  different,  but  in  reality  comes 
to  the  same  thing.  Every  good  desire,  visiting  the  soul  and  awakening  in  it  an  hunger 
and  thirst  after  righteousness, — a  longing  after  God,  is  the  guest  from  the  way,  whose 
hunger  can  only  be  satisfied  by  spiritual  nourishment, — by  the  bread  from  heaven. 


258  THE  FRIEND  AT  MIDNIGHT. 

faith.  While  this  was  possible,  he  therefore  urges  upon  all,  that  they 
have  what  to  communicate  ;  or  if,  when  such  occasion  arises,  when  such 
a  friend  comes  to  them,  craving  spiritual  hospitality,  they  find  they  have 
nothing  to  set  before  him,  he  instructs  them  out  of  this  parable  what  they 
should  do,  and  to  whom  they  should  betake  themselves  for  the  supply  of 
their  own  needs  and  the  needs  of  their  friend, — that  they  go  to  God, 
praying  that  he  would  teach  them,  that  so  they  might  be  enabled  to  teach 
others.*  Vitringa's  explanation  f  is  a  modification  of  this  last.  With 
him  the  guest  is  the  heathen  world ;  the  host  who  receives  him,  the  ser- 
vants and  disciples  of  Jesus,  who  are  taught  from  this  parable  that  they 
can  only  nourish  those  that  come  to  them  with  bread  of  life,  as  they 
themselves  shall  receive  the  same  from  God,  which  therefore  they  must 
solicit  with  all  perseverance  and  constancy  of  supplication, — at  all  events 
a  most  important  truth,  whether  it  is  here  to  be  found  or  not,  for  those 
that  have  to  feed  the  flock  of  Christ. ij:  In  like  manner  in  the  "  three  " 
loaves  various  Scriptural  triads  have  been  traced,  as  for  instance,  it  has 
sometimes  been  said  that  the  host  craving  the  three  loaves,  craves  the 
knowledge  of  the  Trinity,  of  God  in  his  three  persons,^  sometimes  again 
it  is  the  three  choicest  gifts  and  graces  of  the  Spirit,  faith,  hope,  and 
charity,  which  he  desires  may  be  his.|| 

When  he  from  within  replies,  "  Trouble  me  not,  the  door  is  now  shut;'' 
it  means  evidently  more  than  merely  closed  ;  he  would  say,  "  The  door 
is  fastened,  barred,  and  bolted,  the  house  is  made  up  for  the  night,  and 
at  this  unseasonable  hour  I  cannot  disturb  my  children,  who  are  now 
with  me  in  bed,  by  rising  and  giving  thee."  Theophylact  makes  these 
last  words  yet  further  significant;  "My  children  are  ivith  me  in  bed;" 

*  Serm.  105,  c.  2:  Venit  tibi  amicus  de  vi&,,  id  est,  de  vita  hujus  seculi,  in  quS,  om- 
nes  velut  peregrini  transeunt,  nee  ullus  quasi  possessor  manet:  sedomni  homini  dicitur, 
Refectus  es,  transi,age  iter,da  venturo  locum.  Aut  fortfe  de  via,  mala, hoc  est,  de  vita 
mala,  fatigatus  nescio  quis  amicus  tuus,  non  inveniens  veritatem,  qua  audita  et  percepta 
beatus  fiat :  sed  lassatus  in  omni  cupiditate  et  egestate  seculi,  venit  ad  te,  tanquam  ad 
Christianum,  et  dicit:  Redde  miiii  rationem,  fac  me  Christianum.  Et  inlerrogat  quod 
fortfe  tu  per  simplicitatem  fidei  ncsciebas,  et  non  est  unde  reficias  esurientem,  et  te  ad- 
monitus  invenis  indigentem.  Tibi  fortfe  sufficiebat  simplex  fides,  illi  non  sufficit.  Nun- 
quid  deserendus  est  ?  nunquid  de  domo  projiciendus  ?  Ergo  ad  ipsum  Doniinum,  ad 
ipsum  cum  quo  familia  requiescit,  pulsa  orando,  pete,  insta. 

t  Erklar.  d.  Parab.,  p.  763. 

t  Augustine :  Unde  vivo,  inde  dice  ;  unde  pascor,  hoc  ministro.  Compare  a  ser- 
mon by  Guerricus,  in  the  Benedict,  edit,  of  St.  Bernard,  v.  2,  p.  1023. 

§  Augustine,  Enarr.  in  Ps.  cii.  5.     Qumst.  Evang.,  1.  2,  c.  21. 

II  Thauier  gives  an  ingenious  reason,  why  it  should  be  rather  charity  alone :  Ut 
enim  quamlibet  pretiosa  mundi  cibaria  neque  utilia,  neque  jucunda,  neque  comesta- 
bilia  sunt  absque  pane,  ita  etiam  quidquid  agas  Deo  non  multiim  placet,  si  absque  cari- 
tate  fiat.      Euthymius  :  'Aprovj  •  ruj  OptimKas  twv  \pv^wv  iiiaaKoKiai. 


THE  FRIEND  AT  MIDNIGHT.  259 

that  is,  "  All  who  by  earlier  application  to  me  have  obtained  right  to  be 
called  my  children,  have  secured  their  admission  into  my  kingdom,  and 
are  now  resting  with  me  there  ;  it  is  too  late  to  apply,  the  door  is  closed, 
the  time  is  past."*  The  lesson  to  be  here  learned  would  then  be  this, 
that  through  earnest  importunate  prayer,  even  lost  opportunities  may  be 
made  up  and  recovered.^ 

"  /  say  unto  you,  Though  he  will  not  rise  and  give  him,  because  he  is 
his  friend,  yet  because  of  his  importunity  he  will  rise  and  give  him  as 
many  as  he  needeth."  Our  version,  translating  ^'■importunity,"  has 
rather  softened  the  original  word,  which  might  be  rendered  by  a  stronger 
term;  it  \s  \\\s '■^ shamehssness'"\  yv\\\c\\  extorts  the  gift.  At  the  same 
time,  the  shamelessness  which  is  here  attributed  to  the  petitioner  is 
greatly  mitigated  by  the  consideration,  that  it  is  not  for  himself  but  for 
another,  and  that  he  may  not  be  wanting  in  the  sacred  duties  of  hospi- 
tality, that  he  so  pertinaciously  urges  his  request. §  Through  this  per- 
tinacity II  he  at  length  obtains,  not  merely  the  three  which  he  asked,  but 
"  as  many  as  he  needeth,"  like  that  woman  already  referred  to,  from  whom 
the  Lord  at  first  seemed  to  have  shut  up  all  his  compassion,  but  to  whom 
at  last  he  opened  the  full  treasure-house  of  his  grace,  and  bid  her  to  help 
herself,  saying,  "  O  woman,  great  is  thy  faith  !  be  it  unto  thee  even  as 
thou  wilt."  Augustine  too  observes,  that  he  who  would  not  at  first  so 
much  as  send  one  of  his  house,  himself  now  rises,  and  supplies  all 
the  wants  of  his  friend ;  and  adds  on  the  return  of  prayers  not  being 
always  immediate  many  excellent  observations,  as  this.  When  sometimes 
God  gives  tardily,  he  commends  his  gifts,  he  does  not  deny  them ; — 
Things  long  desired,  are  more  sweet  in  their  obtainment ;  those  quickly 

*  Augustine :  Quid  pulsas  sine  tempore,  qui  piger  fuisti  cum  tempore  ?  Dies  fuit, 
et  in  lumine  non  ambulasti,  nox  supervenit,  et  pulsare  ccEpisti. 

t  It  is  possible  that  the  word  which  we  translate  "  children"  would  be  fitter  trans- 
lated "  servants,"  and  the  sense  then  would  be,  "  I  cannot  myself  come,  and  I  have 
none  whom  I  can  send  ;  my  household  as  well  as  myself  are  gone  to  rest."  It  is  clear 
that  ra  naiSia  has  been  so  understood  by  Augustine  (Ep.  ]30,c.  8)  :  Jam  cu7n  suis  servis 
dormientem  petitor  instantissimus  et  molestissimus  excitavit. 

t  'AvaiScia.  The  Vulgate  gives  it  by  an  happily  chosen  word,  improbitas,  which, 
like  the  adjective  from  which  it  is  derived,  may  describe  unweariedness  in  a  good  cause 
as  well  as  in  a  bad. 

§  In  the  same  manner  Abraham's  conversation  with  God,  (Gen.  xviii.  23-33,) 
which  almost  rises  into  a  like  dvaiStia,  is  not  the  asking  anything  for  himself,  but  inter- 
cession for  the  people  of  Sodom. 

II  Augustine  (Enarr.  in  Ps.  cii.  5))  :  Extorsit  taedio  quod  non  possit  merito.  The 
Jews  have  a  proverb,  Impudentia  est  regnum  sine  corona  ;  and  again  they  say,  Impu- 
dentia  etiam  coram  Deo  proficit.  Von  Meyer  (Blatter  filr  hOhere  Wahrheit,  v.  5, 
p.  45)  has  some  interesting  remarks  on  the  ai/aii^ia  of  this  petitioner,  and  how  it  is  recon- 
cilable with  the  humility  which  is  praised  in  the  publican.     (Luke  xviii.  13.) 


260  THE  FRIEND  AT  MIDNIGHT. 

given,  soon  lose  their  value ; — and  again,  God  for  a  time  withholds  his 
gifts,  that  thou  mayest  learn  to  desire  great  things  greatly.* — Faith,  and 
patience,  and  humility,  are  all  called  into  e.xercise  by  this  temporary 
denial  of  a  request.  It  is  then  seen  who  will  pray  always  and  not  faint, 
and  who  will  prove  but  as  the  leopard,  which  if  it  does  not  attain  its 
prey  at  the  first  spring,  turns  sullenly  back  and  cannot  be  induced  to 
repeat  the  attempt. |  The  parable  concludes  with  words  in  which  the 
same  duty  of  prayer  is  commended,  and  now  no  longer  in  a  figure,  but 
plainly  :  "  Arid  I  say  unto  you,  Ask,  and  it  shall  be  given  you  ;  seek,  and 
ye  shall Jind;  knock,  and  it  shall  he  opened  untoyou"X  The  three  repe- 
titions  of  the  command  are  more  than  mere  repetitions;  since  to  seek  is 
more  than  to  ask,  and  to  knock  than  to  seek  ;  and  thus  in  this  ascending 
scale  of  earnestness,  an  exhortation  is  given,  not  merely  to  prayer,  but 
to  increasing  urgency  in  prayer,  even  till  the  suppliant  carry  away  the 
blessing  which  he  requires,  and  which  God  is  only  waiting  for  the  due 
time  to  arrive  that  he  may  give  him.§  All  that  we  have  here  is  indeed 
a  commentary  on  words  of  our  Lord  spoken  at  another  time,  "  The 
kingdom  of  heaven  suffereth  violence,  and  the  violent  take  it  by  force." 

*  Cum  aliquando  tardius  dat,  commendat  dona.non  negat. — Diil  desiderata  dulcius 
obtinentur,  cito  data  vilescunt ;  and  again,  Ut  discas  magna  magne  desiderare. 

t  Stella  :  Sunt  multi  qui  naturae  sunt  et  conditionis  ieonispardi,  qui  si  primo  saltu 
rel  secundo  non  assequitur  praedam,  non  amplius  earn  insequitur.  Ita  isti  sunt  qui 
primS,  oratione  vel  secunda.  non  exauditi,  protinus  ab  oratione  cessant,  et  impatientiae 
nota,  signantur. 

t  Augustine  {De  Serm.  Dom.  in  Mon.,  1.  2,  c.  21)  had  made  only  one  of  these 
three  commands  (Matt.  vii.  7)  to  have  direct  reference  to  prayer,  while  the  other 
two  he  referred  to  other  forms  of  earnest  striving  after  the  kingdom  of  God  ; — but  in 
his  Retractations  he  says,  no  doubt  more  accurately  :  Ad  instantissimam  orationem 
omnia  referuntur.  Their  position  in  relation  to  this  parable  leaves  no  doubt  on  the 
matter. 

§  Augustine  :  Deus  ad  hoc  se  peti  vult,  ut  capaces  donorum  ejus  fiant,  qui  petuntj 
and  again  ;  Non  dat  nisi  petenti,  ne  det  non  capienti. 


THE  RICH  FOOL.  261 


PARABLE  XIX. 


THE    RICH   FOOL. 

Luke  xii.  16-2L 

In  the  midst  of  one  of  our  Lord's  most  interesting  discourses  an  inter- 
ruption occurs.  One  of  his  hearers  had  so  slight  an  interest  in  the  spi- 
ritual truths  which  he  was  communicating,  but  had  so  much  at  heart 
the  redressing  of  a  wrong,  which  he  believed  himself  to  have  sustained 
in  his  worldly  interests,  that,  as  would  seem,  he  could  not  wait  for  a 
more  convenient  season,  but  broke  in  upon  the  Lord's  teaching  with  that 
request  which  gave  occasion  for  this  parable,  "  Master,  speak  to  my 
brother,  that  he  divide  the  inheritance  with  me."  It  has  been  sometimes 
taken  for  granted,  that  this  man  who  desired  a  division  of  the  inherit- 
ance, had  no  right  to  what  he  was  here  claiming,  and  was  only  seeking 
to  make  an  unfair  use  of  the  Saviour's  influence.  But  how  much  does 
this  supposition  weaken  the  moral.  All  men,  without  any  especial 
teaching,  would  condemn  such  unrighteousness  as  this.  But  that  love 
of  the  world,  which,  keeping  itself  within  limitsof  decency  and  legality, 
yet  takes  all  the  affections  of  the  heart  from  God,  and  robs  divine  things 
of  all  their  interest — against  that  men  have  need  to  be  continually 
warned;  and  such  a  warning  is  here, — a  warning,  not  against  unright- 
eousness, but  against  covetousness  ;*  for  this  may  display  itself  in  the 
manner  and  temper  in  which  we  hold  and  reclaim  our  own  as  truly  as 
in  the  undue  snatching  at  that  of  others : — "  Take  heed  and  beware  of 
covetousness. "■]"  From  this  man's  confident  appeal  to  Jesus,  made  in 
the  presence  of  the  whole  multitude,  it  is  probable  that  his  brother  did 
withhold  from  him  a  part  of  the  patrimony,  which  fell  justly  to  his 
share.     But  it  was  the  extreme  inopportuneness  of  the  season  which  he 


*  Not  d6tKia,  but  TrXeove^ia.  It  is  exactly  opposed  to  the  avrdpKtta,  which  has  always 
enough,  as  the  rr\cuvc^ia  has  never. 

t  In  the  Vulgate,  Cavete  ab  omni  avariti&,.  So  Lachmann,  d-rrd  vdcrn;  Tr'Xcoi'e^ias. 
The  emphasis  on  this  "  all"  is  strikingly  brought  out  by  Augustine,  (Serm.  107,  c.  3,) 
as  though  Christ  were  herein  saying  to  each  that  stood  by,  Forte  tu  avarumet  cupidum 
diceres,  si  qusereret  aliena  ;  Ego  autem  dico  cupide  et  avar^  non  appetas  nee  tua....Non 
solium  avarus  est  qui  rapit  aliena  :  sed  et  ille  avarus  est  qui  cupide  servat  sua. 


262  THE  RICH  FOOL. 

chose  for  urging  his  claim,  that  showed  him  as  one  in  whom  the  world- 
ly prevailed  to  the  danger  of  making  him  totally  irreceptive  of  the  spi- 
ritual, and  that  drew  this  warning  from  the  lips  of  the  Lord.  For  that 
he  should  have  desired  Christ  as  an  umpire  or  arbitrator, — and  such 
only  the  word  in  the  original  means,  (see  Acts  vii.  27,  35 ;  Exod.  ii. 
14,)  such  too  the  Lord,  without  publicly  recognized  authority,  could 
only  have  been* — this  in  itself  had  nothing  sinful.  St.  Paul  himself 
recommended  this  manner  of  settling  differences,  (1  Cor.  vi.  1-6,)  and 
how  weighty  a  burden  this  arbitration  afterwards  became  to  the  bishops 
of  the  Church  is  well  known. f 

In  the  request  itself  there  was  nothing  sinful,  yet  still  the  Lord  ab- 
solutely refused  to  accede  to  it;  he  declined  here,  as  in  every  other 
case,  to  interfere  in  the  affairs  of  civil  life.  It  was  indeed  most  true, 
that  his  word  and  doctrine  received  into  the  hearts  of  men,  would  modify 
and  change  the  whole  framework  of  civil  society,  that  his  word  and  his 
life  was  the  seed  out  of  which  a  Christendom  would  evolve  itself,  but  it 
Vi^as  from  the  inward  to  the  outward  that  he  would  work.  His  adversa- 
ries more  than  once  sought  to  thrust  upon  him  the  exercise  of  a  juris- 
diction which  he  so  carefully  avoided,  as  in  the  case  of  the  woman  taken 
in  adultery,  (supposing  that  passage  to  belong  to  the  true  Gospel  of  St. 
John,) — as  in  that  of  the  Roman  tribute.  But  each  time  he  avoided  the 
snare  which  was  laid  for  him,  keeping  himself  within  the  limits  of  the 
moral  and  spiritual  world,  as  that  from  which  alone  effectual  improve- 
ments in  the  outer  life  of  man  could  proceed.:}: 

*  Grotius  explains  ficpiarni :  Qui  familiae  herciscundae,  communi  dividuncio,  aut 
finibus  regundis  arbiter  sumiter.  Lachmann  has  admitted  Kpirnv,  in  the  place  oi  iixaa- 
Tftv,  into  his  text. — See  Tertullian  {Adv.  Marc,  1.  4,  c.  28)  for  the  reasons  which 
moved  the  Lord  here  to  use  the  very  phrase  with  which  the  Israelite  (Exod.  ii.  14) 
put  back  the  arbitration  of  Moses  ;  and  in  Hammond's  Paraphrase  (in  loc.) 

t  Augustine  (Enarr.  in  Fs.  cxviii.  115)  complains  of  this  distraction  from  spirit- 
ual objects,  and  that  he  was  not  allowed  to  say  to  those  who  came  to  him  with  cases 
for  arbitration,"  Who  made  me  a  judge  or  a  divider  over  you  ?"  And  Bernard,  writing 
to  Pope  Eugenius,  especially  warns  him  against  this  distraction  of  mind,  arising  from 
the  multitude  of  these  worldly  causes  which  would  be  brought  before  him. 

t  The  latter  part  of  ver.  15  is  difficult,  not  that  there  is  any  difficulty  in  tracing 
the  connexion  of  thought,  or  the  meaning,  but  that  the  sentence  is  more  bijfdened 
with  words  than  can  be  conveniently  taken  up  into  the  construction.  Euthymius, 
Theophylact,  and  others,  and  in  modern  times  Paulus,  would  make  this  the  meaning: 
When  a  man  possesses  much  abundance,  yet  is  not  his  (bodily)  life  one  among  his 
possessions  ;  in  short,  A  man,  though  he  is  rich,  cannot  live  for  ever,  or.  Riches  will 
not  lengthen  his  life.  It  may  certainly  be  said  in  favour  of  this  explanation,  that  it 
suits  well  enough  with  the  parable  which  follows,  and  it  might  pass,  if  it  were  this  kind 
of  flat  morality  which  our  Lord  were  in  the  habit  of  inculcating,  or  if  ^(ofi  were  ever 
in  Scripture  degraded  to  this  lower  dense,  and  used  to  designate  the  mere  soulish  life, 


THE  RICH  FOOL.  263 

The  Lord  having  uttered  a  warning  against  covetousness,  a  sin 
which  is  always  united  with  the  trusting  in  uncertain  riches,  (1  Tim. 
vi.  17,)  for  who  that  did  not  trust  in  them  as  a  source  of  good,  as  a 
means  of  blessedness,  would  be  so  eager  in  their  accumulation  ? — he 
proceeds  to  show  by  a  parable  the  folly  of  such  trust, — how,  though 
man  is  ever  dreaming  that  these  worldly  goods  are  the  source  of  happi- 
ness, and  is  thus  drawn  to  trust  in  them,  rather  than  in  the  living  God, 
yet  in  truth  they  cannot  constitute  a  man's  blessedness.  For,  besides 
other  reasons,  that  only  is  blessedness,  which  has  in  it  security  and  en- 
durance;  but  that  earthly  life,  which  is  the  necessary  condition  of 
drawing  enjoyment  out  of  worldly  abundance,  may  come  to  an  end  at 
any  moment,  and  then  will  ensue  utter  loss  and  destitution  to  him  who 
has  thus  been  laying  up  treasure  for  himself,  instead  of  seeking  to  be 
rich  toward  God. 

'^  The  ground  of  a  certain  rich  man  brought  forth  plentifully."  It 
was  said  long  before,  "  The  prosperity  of  fools  shall  destroy  them," 
'  (Prov.  i.  32,)  a  truth  to  which  this  man  sets  his  seal,  for  his  prosperity 
ensnares  him  in  a  deeper  worldliness,  draws  out  the  selfish  propensities 
of  his  heart  into  stronger  action.*  In  this  respect  how  deep  a  know- 
ledge of  the  human  heart  the  warning  of  the  Psalmist  displays,  "^Jf 
riches  increase,  set  not  thy  heart  upon  them."  It  might,  at  first  sight, 
appear,  that  the  time  when  we  should  be  in  chiefest  danger  of  setting 
our  heart  upon  riches,  would  be  when  we  saw  them  escaping  from  our 
gra^, — perishing  from  under  our  hand.  But  all  experience  testifies 
the  contrary, — that  earthly  losses  are  the  remedy  for  covetousness  while 

the  xpvx^-  It  is  much  better  to  take  /;  ^oifi  here  in  that  deeper  sense,  which  in  Scrip- 
ture it  has  ever,  as  man's  true  Hfe, — his  blessedness;  and  then  with  Schultz  {«6.  d. 
Parabel  vom  Vorwalter,  p.  79)  to  put  a  comma  before  and  after  tf  tu  Trepiaaeietii  nvl, 
and  translate  thus:  When  a  man  comes  to  have  abundance  (e^  r.  wcpicr.  rtv'i),  his  life 
(his  true  life, — his  blessedness)  does  not  grow  out  of  his  worldly  goods.  Thus  will  be 
preserved  all  the  force  of  the  preposition  ex,  expressing  the  springing  up  or  the  growing 
out  of  one  thing  from  another,  (see  Luke  xvi.  9  ;  Acts  i.  18  ;  John  iii.  5,  6  ;  xviii.  36, 
at  which  last  place  the  Lord  asserts,  his  kingdom  grows  not  out  of  an  earthly  root,)  and 
then  the  parable  is  brought  in  confirmation.  The  sudden  taking  away  of  the  rich 
worldling's  goods,  or  which  comes  to  the  same  thing,  his  sudden  taking  away  from 
them,  shows  that  his  life,  his  true  blessedness,  was  not  froin  them, — that  he  had  made 
a  fearful  mistake  in  supposing  that  it  was :  since  the  very  idea  of  blessedness  involves 
that  of  permanence,  not  of  something  that  may  slip  from  under  a  man's  feet  at  any 
moment,  which  an  happiness  linked  to  a  merely  earthly  life,  and  dependent  upon  the 
duration  of  that  life,  is  ever  liable  to  do  ;  and  then,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  parable,  a 
glimpse  of  the  true  ^<ji)  is  opened  to  us  as  being  a  TrXoDTEti/  eis  Oc6i',  a  life,  a  blessed- 
ness, which  is  eternal  as  the  God  upon  whom  it  is  built. 

*  Ambrose:  Dat  tibi  fcecunditatem   Deus,  ut  aut  vincat  aut  condemnet  avaritiam 
tuam. 


264  THE  RICH  FOOL. 

increase  in  worldly  goods  is  that  which  chiefly  provokes  to  it,  serving, 
not  as  water  to  quench,  but  as  fuel  to  augment,  the  fire  :*  "  He  that 
loveth  silver  shall  not  be  satisfied  with  silver,  nor  he  that  loveth  abund- 
ance with  increase."  (Eccl.  v.  13.)  St.  Basil,  in  the  opening  of  his 
noble  sermon  f  upon  this  parable,  observes  :  "  There  are  two  manners 
of  temptations,  either  afflictions  torment  the  heart,  as  gold  in  the  fur- 
nace,  through  the  trial  of  faith  working  patience,  or  often  the  very  pros- 
perities of  life  are  to  many  in  place  of  other  temptation."  But  it  seems 
a  certain  exaggeration  when  he  explains,  as  many  others  have  done,  the 
following  words,  "  he  thought  within  himself,  saying,  What  shall  I  do  .?" 
as  though  they  were  the  utterance  of  one  brought  to  sore  straits  and  dif- 
ficulties through  the  very  abundance,  for  the  sake  of  which  others  were 
envying  him, — as  though  they  were  the  anxious  deliberations  of  one  that 
was  now  at  his  wit's  end,  and  knew  not  which  way  he  should  turn,  who 
was  in  as  painful  perplexity  through  his  riches  as  others  are  through 
their  poverty.:}: 

Rather  we  should  say,  that  the  curtain  is  here  drawn  back,  and  we 
are  admitted  into  the  inner  council-chamber  of  a  worldling's  heart, — 
rejoicing  over  his  abundance,  and  realizing  to  the  very  letter  the  mak- 
ing "provision  for  the  flesh  to  fulfil  the  lusts  thereof."  As  far  as  he 
may  be  said  to  be  perplexed,  this  is  his  perplexity  :  "  /  have  no  room 
where  to  bestow  my  fruits.^'  It  has  been  well  answered  to  him,  "  Thou 
hast  barns, — the  bosoms  of  the  needy, — the  houses  of  the  widows, — the 
mouths  of  orphans  and  of  infants. "§  If  he  had  listened  to  the  prudent 
admonition  of  the  sonof  Sirach,  (xxix.  12,)  "Shut  up  alms  in  thy  store- 
houses," he  would  not  have  found  his  barns  too  narrow.  To  one  thus 
ignorant  where  to  bestow  his  goods  and  so  in  danger  of  losing  them, 


*  Plutarch  in  his  excellent  little  treatise,  Uepi  (piKon'Xov-iai,  applies  to  the  covetous 

the  line, 

Xo  (pdpfiaKov  cov  T>V  v6(Tov  jjei^Ci}  ttouT, 
and  the  same  truth  is  confessed  in  the  Latin  proverb :  Avaium   irritat  pecunia,  non 
satiat.     Compare  Seneca,  Ad.  Helv.,  c.  11  ;  and  the  fine  Eastern  tale  of  Abdallah,  the 
camel-driver,  has  the  same  moral.     See  also  Augustine,  Serm.  50,  c.  4. 

t  Ed.  Bened.,  Paris,  1722,  v.  2,  p.  43  :  and  in  the  new  Paris  reprint,  v.  2,  p.  60. 

t  So  Augustine  :  Turbavit  hominem  copia  plusquam  inopia.  And  Grotius  quotes 
in  this  view  :  Crescentem  sequitur  cura  pecuniam.  Thus  too  Gregory  (Moral.,  1.  15, 
c.  22)  :  0  angustia  ex  satietate  nata  !  De  ubertate  agri  angustatur  animus  avari. 
Dicens  namque.  Quid  faciam  ?  profecto  indicat  quia  votorum  suorum  affectibus  pres- 
sus  sub  quodam  rerum  fasce  laborabat.  But  Unger's  is  a  better  account  of  these  words : 
Opulentum  describit  parabola  elatl  deliberantem. 

(j  Ambrose  {De  Nohuthe,  c.  7)  :  Habes  apothecas,  inopum  sinus,  viduarum  domus, 
era  infaniium.  There  is  much  else  that  is  excellent  on  this  parable.  Cf.  Augustine, 
Serm.  3G,  c.  9. 


THE  RICH  FOOL.  265 

Augustine  gives  this  earnest  aflTectionate  admonition  :  "  God  desires  not 
that  thou  shouldst  lose  thy  riches,  but  that  thou  shouldst  change  their 
place;  he  has  given  thee  a  counsel,  which  do  thou  understand.  Sup- 
pose a  friend  should  enter  thy  house,  and  should  find  that  thou  hadst 
lodged  thy  fruits  on  a  damp  floor,  and  he,  knowing  by  chance  the  ten- 
dency of  those  fruits  to  spoil,  whereof  thou  wert  ignorant,  should  give 
thee  counsel  of  this  sort,  saying,  Brother,  thou  losest  the  things  which 
thou  hast  gathered  with  great  labour  :  thou  hast  placed  them  in  a  damp 
place  ;  in  a  few  days  they  will  corrupt ; — And  what,  brother,  shall  I 
do  ? — Raise  them  to  a  higher  room  j — thou  wouldst  listen  to  thy  bro- 
ther suggesting  that  thou  shouldst  raise  thy  fruits  from  a  lower  to  a 
higher  floor,  and  thou  wilt  not  listen  to  Christ  advising  that  thou  raise 
thy  treasure  from  earth  to  heaven,  where  that  will  not  indeed  be  restored 
to  thee  which  thou  layest  up,  for  he  would  have  thee  lay  up  earth  that 
thou  mayest  receive  heaven,  lay  up  perishable  things  that  thou  mayest 
receive  eternal."* 

This  would  have  been  his  wisdom,  but  he  determines  otherwise — not 
to  provide  thus  for  himself  "  bags  which  wax  not  old,  a  treasure  in  the 
heaven  which  faileth  not,"  (ver.  33,)  but  on  the  contrary,  "  /  will  pull 
down  my  barns  and  build  greater,  and  there  will  I  bestow  all  my  fruits  and 
my  goods."  "  Observe,"  says  Theophylact  on  these  words,  '•'  another  folly, 
— 7ny  goods,  and  7ny  fruits, — for  he  did  not  count  that  he  had  these  from 
God,  else,  as  a  steward  of  God,  he  would  otiierwise  have  disposed  of 
them,  but  he  counted  them  the  products  of  his  own  labours, — wherefore 
separating  them  exclusively  for  himself,  he  said,  my  goods,  and  ?n?/ fruits." 
Yet  according  to  the  world's  judgment  there  was  nothing  sinful  in  all 
this  ;  his  riches  were  fairly  got,"]"  and  this  makes  the  example  the  better 
to  suit  the  present  occasion.  Nor  yet  was  there  anything  which  the 
world  condemns  in  the  plans  which  he  laid  out  for  his  future  enjoyment, 
in  the  decent  Epicureanism  which  he  meditated  ;  "  /  loillsay  to  my  soul, 
Soul,  thou  hast  much  goods  laid  up  for  many  years  ;  take  thine  ease,  eat, 
drink,  and  be  merry."  Having  now  at  last,  as  he  imagines,  secured  him- 
self against  everything  that  could  disturb  his  felicity,  he  determines  to 
rest  from  his  labours,  to  enjoy  that  ease  and  quiet  from  which  hitherto 
the  anxious  acquisition  of  wealth  had  hindered  him;  like  the  rich  man 
in  another  parable,  to  fare  sumptuously  every  day.  His  plans  of  felici- 
ty, it  may  be  observed,  rise  no  higher  than  to  this  satisfying  of  the  flesh, 
so  that  there  is  an  irony  as  melancholy  as  it  is  profound  in  making  him 


*  Enarr.  in  Fs.  xlviii.  9.     Cf.  Enarr.  in  Ps.  xxxviii.  6. 

t  Augustine  {Serm.  178,  c.  2):  Non  limite  perturbalo,  non  spoliato  paupere,  non 
circumvento  simplice. 

18 


266  THE  RICH  FOOL. 

address  this  speech,  not  to  his  body,  but  to  his  soul — to  that  soul,  which 
though  thus  capable  of  being  dragged  down  into  the  basest  service  of  the 
flesh,  imbodied  and  imbruted,  was  also  capable  of  being  infornaed  by  the 
Divine  Spirit,  and  of  knowing  and  loving  and  glorifying  God. 

He  expects  he  shall  thus  nourish  his  soul  "for  many  years,"  (see  Si- 
rac.  V.  1,)  he  boasts  not  merely  of  to-morrow,  but  of  many  years  to  come  ; 
he  expects,  as  Job  did  once,  to  multiply  his  days  as  the  sand ;  his  felici- 
ty shall  not  soon  come  to  an  end,  but  to-morrow  shall  be  as  to-day,  and 
much  more  abundant.*  Compare  with  all  this  the  words  of  the  son  of 
Sirach,  (xi.  18,  19,)  forming  as  they  do  a  remarkable  parallel  :  "  There 
is  that  waxeth  rich  by  his  weariness  and  pinching,  and  this  is  the  por- 
tion of  his  reward  :  whereas  he  saith,  I  have  found  rest,  and  now  will 
eat  continually  of  my  goods  ;  and  yet  he  knoweth  not  what  time  shall 
come  upon  him,  and  that  he  must  leave  those  things  to  others  and  die," 
Therefore  deserves  he  the  appellation  of  fool  which  immediately  after  is 
given  him  ;  "  Bui  God  said  unto  him,  TJiou  fool,  this  night  thy  soul  shall 
be  required  of  thee."  "  Thoufool,"-\ — this  title  is  opposed  to  the  opinion 
of  his  own  prudence  and  foresight  which  he  entertained, — "this  night," 
to  the  many  years  that  he  promised  to  himself, — and  that  "  soul,"  which 
he  purposed  to  nourish  and  make  fat,  it  is  declared  shall  be  inexorably 
«  required,"  and  painfully  rendered  up.:j:  There  is  no  need  to  inquire 
here,  as  has  been  sometimes  done,  in  what  way  God  spoke  to  the  man, — 
whether  by  a  sudden  presentiment  of  approaching  death,  by  some  strong 
alarm  of  conscience,  by  some  mortal  sickness  at  this  instant  falling  upon 
him,  or  by  what  other  means.  We  are  not  to  understand  that  in  any  of 
these  ways  God  spake  to  him.  It  was  not  with  him  as  with  the  Baby- 
lonian king,  while  the  word  was  in  whose  mouth  there  fell  a  voice  from 

*  TertuUian  :  Provenientibus  fructibus  ampliationem  horreorum,  et  longee  securitatis 
spatia  cogitavit. 

t  See  a  striking  Epistle  (the  lOlst)  of  Seneca,  on  the  sudden  death  of  a  rich  ac- 
quaintance, where,  among  other  things,  he  says  :  Qua,m  stultum  est  setatem  disponere  ! 
ne  crastino  quidem  dominamur.  O  quanta  dementia  est,  spes  longas  inchoantium. 
Emam,  Eedificabo,  credam,  exigam,  honores  geram  ;  turn  demum  lassam  et  plenam 
senectutem  in  oiium  referam.  See,  too,  more  than  one  of  the  Greek  Epigrams  ex- 
pressing the  same  truth,  that  with  all  his  heaping  a  man  is  not  able  ^lons  coipevaai 
fiirpa  iT€pi!it!6Tcpa,  and  this  surely  is  what  the  Lord  intends  to  affirm,  Matt.  vi.  27,— 
that  no  one  can  add  to  his  term  of  life,  (/(Ai/ci'a,)  for  while  many  would  fain  so  add  to 
their  length  of  life,  who  ever  wanted  to  add  to  his  stature?  and  it  is  not  merely  a 
great  addition,  such  as  a  cubit,  which  he  could  not  make,  but  the  smallest,  not  even 
an  inch,  which  would  naturally  be  the  thing  expressed,  if  that  were  the  meaning. 

I  Vitringa  {Erklitr.  d.  Parab.,  p.  781)  makes  here  an  ingenious  reference  to  1  Sam. 
XXV.  25,  and  observes  that  this  rich  fool  is  the  Nabal  of  the  New  Testament :  "  As  his 
name  is,  so  is  he  :  Nabal  is  his  name,  and  folly  is  with  him."  Compare  ver.  36-38, 
then  with  this  ver.  20  of  our  parable. 


THE  RICH  FOOL.  267 

heaven  tellinor  him  that  the  kingdom  was  departed  from  him.  (Dan.  iv. 
31.)  Here  we  are  to  suppose  nothing  of  the  kind,  but  more  awful  still, 
that  while  those  secure  deliberations  which  have  been  just  described 
were  going  on  in  the  thoughts  of  the  man,  this  sentence  was  being  de- 
termined  in  the  counsels  of  God  :*  for  it  is  thus  that  the  Lord  in  heaven 
derides  the  counsels  of  sinners,  seeing  them  in  their  vanity  and  folly,  and 
knowing  how  soon  he  will  bring  them  to  nothing. f  Not  as  yet  was  there 
any  direct  communication  between  God  and  the  man's  soul — any  mes- 
sage or  warning  concerning  the  near  impending  judgment,  but  even  at 
the  very  moment  when  God  was  pronouncing  the  decree  that  the  thread 
of  his  life  should  in  a  hw  moments  be  cut  in  twain,  he  was  promising 
himself  as  confidently  as  ever  the  long  spaces  of  an  uninterrupted  se- 
curity. 

There  is  a  force  in  the  words,  "  shall  be  required  of  thee,'^  (with  which 
we  may  compare  Wisd.  xv.  8,  "  His  life  which  was  lent  him  shall  be 
demanded,")  a  force  which  Theophylact  well  brings  out :  "  For  like  piti- 
less exactors  of  tribute,  terrible  angels  shall  require  thy  soul  from  thee 
unwilling,  and  through  love  of  life  resisting.  For  from  the  righteous  his 
soul  is  not  required,  but  he  commits  it  to  God  and  the  Father  of  spirits, 
pleased  and  rejoicing,  nor  finds  it  hard  to  lay  it  down,  for  the  body  lies 
upon  it  as  a  light  burden.  But  the  sinner  who  has  enfleshed  his  soul, 
and  imbodied  it,  and  made  it  earthy,  has  prepared  to  render  its  divulsion 
from  the  body  most  hard  :  wherefore  it  is  said  to  be  required  of  him,  as 
a  disobedient  debtor,  that  is  delivered  to  pitiless  exactors. ":{:  For  he  is 
not  as  a  ship,  which  has  been  long  waiting  in  harbour,  and  joyfully  when 
the  signal  is  given  lifts  its  anchor,  and  makes  sail  for  the  harbour  of  eter- 
nity, but  like  the  ship  which  by  some  fierce  wind  is  dragged  from  its 
moorings,  and  driven  furiously  to  perish  on  the  rocks.  The  mere  world- 
ling is  torn  from  the  world  which  is  the  only  sphere  of  delight  which  he 
knows,  as  the  fabled  mandrake  was  torn  from  the  earth,  shrieking  and 
with  bleeding  roots. §  "  Then  whose  shall  those  things  be  which  thou  hast 
provided  7"  Solomon  long  before  had  noted  this  as  constituting  part  of 
the  vanity  of  wealth,  and  the  eager  pursuit  after  wealth,  namely,  the  un- 


*  God  said  to  him  this,  in  the  words  of  Grotius,  Non  revelando  sed  decernendo. 

t  This  will  come  out  yet  more  strongly  if  with  the  best  manuscripts  we  read  not 
the  vocative  a<^^'iv,  but  the  nominative  aippiou,  Fool !     It  is  so  in  Lachmann's  text. 

t  So  on  the  other  side,  the  Jewish  doctors  taught  that  the  angel  Gabriel  drew 
gently  out  with  a  kiss,  the  souls  of  the  righteous  from  their  mouths ;  to  something  of 
which  kind,  the  phrase  so  often  used  to  express  the  peaceful  departure  of  the  saints.  In 
osculo  Domini  obdormivit,  must  allude. 

§  See  Lucian's  inimitable  dialogue,  the  sixteenth,  {Cataplus,)  for  a  commentary, 
in  its  way,  on  these  words  "  shall  be  required,"  as  well  as  on  those  which  next  follow. 


268  THE  RICH  FOOL. 

certainty  to  whom  after  death  it  would  come,  and  of  the  use  which  the 
heir  would  make  of  it,  (Eccles.  ii.  18,  19,)  "  Yea,  I  hated  all  my  labour 
which  I  had  taken  under  the  sun,  because  I  should  leave  it  to  the  man 
that  shall  be  after  me:  and  who  knoweth  whether  he  shall  be  a  wise  man 
or  a  fool  ?"  Compare  Ps.  xxxix.  6,  "  He  heapeth  up  riches,  and  know- 
eth not  who  shall  gather  them."  (Eccles.  ii.  26  ;  Ps.  xlix.  6-20;  Job 
xxvii.  16,  17.)* 

"  So  is  he  that,  layeth  up  treasure  for  himself,  and  is  not  rich  toward 
God,'^  or,  does  not  enrich  himself  toward  God — for  the  two  clauses  of 
the  verse  are  parallel,  and  in  the  second  not  merely  a  state  or  condition, 
the  being  rich,  but  as  in  the  first,  an  effort  and  endeavour,  the  making 
oneself  rich,  though  in  a  manner  altogether  different,  is  assumed.  Self 
and  God  are  here  contemplated  as  the  two  poles  between  which  the  soul 
is  placed,  for  one  or  other  of  which  it  must  determine,  and  then  make 
that  one  the  end  of  all  its  aims  and  efforts.  If  for  the  first,  then  the  man 
"  layeth  tip  treasure  for  himself,"  and  what  the  end  of  this  is,  we  have 
seen  ;  the  man  and  his  tz'easure,  so  far  at  least  as  it  is  his  treasure, 
come  to  nothing  together.  He  has  linked  himself  to  the  perishable  in 
his  inmost  being,  and  he  must  perish  with  it.  His  very  enriching  of 
himself  outwardly,  while  that  is  made  the  object  of  his  being,  is  an 
impoverishing  of  himself  inwardly,  that  is,  toward  God  and  in  those 
which  are  the  true  riches  :  for  there  is  a  continual  draining  off  to 
worldly  objects,  of  those  affections  which  were  given  him  that  they 
might  find  their  satisfying  object  in  God  ;  where  his  treasure  is,  there 
his  heart  is  also.  Now  the  Scripture  ever  considers  the  heart  as  that 
which  constitutes  a  man  truly  rich  or  poor.  He  that  has  no  love  of 
God,  no  large  spiritual  affections,  no  share  in  the  unsearchable  riches 
of  Christ,  no  sympathies  with  his  brethren,  is  in  fact,  "  wretched  and 
miserable,  and  poor  and  blind,  and  naked,"  and  shall  one  day  find  out 
that  he  is  so,  however  now  he  may  say,  "  I  am  rich  and  increased  with 
goods,  and  have  need  of  nothing  :"  he  is  poor  towards  God,  he  has 
nothing  with  God ;  he  has  laid  up  in  store  no  good  foundation  against 
the  time  to  come.  On  the  other  hand,  he  only  is  truly  rich,  who  is 
rich  toward  God — who  is  rich  in  God — who  has  made  the  eternal  and 
the  unchangeable  the  object  of  his  desires  and  his  efforts.  He  in  God 
possesses  all  things,  though  in  this  world  he  were  a  beggar,  and  for 
him  to  die  will  not  be  to  quit,  but  to  go  to,  his  riches. f 

*  So  the  Greek  epigrammatist  on  the  painful  gatherer  of  wealth  for  others : 
Utiroj  'oTTota  ficXttroa  TroAurpiiroij  ivi  <ri^i/?Xoif 
M-O^Oijaet,  Ircpuv  ipcnrofievdiv  to  jxiXt. 
t  I  cannot  give  better  what  seems  to  me  the  true  view  of  the   passage  than  in 
Cyprian's  words  addressed  to  the  covetous  {De  Opere  et  Eleem.) :  Obsederunt  animum 


.THE  RICH   FOOL  269 

Our  Lord  having  thus  warned  his  hearers  against  covetousness,  and 
knowino-  how  often  it  springs  from  a  distrust  in  God's  providential  care, 
goes  on  to  teach  them  where  they  may  find  that  which  shall  be  the  best 
preservative  against  all  such  over  anxious  thoughts  for  the  future,  name- 
ly, in  the  assurance  of  the  love  and  care  of  an  heavenly  Father,  (ver. 
22-30,)  so  that  the  connexion  is  as  close  as  it  is  beautiful,  between  this 
parable  and  the  instructions  which  immediately  follow.  There  is  also, 
perhaps,  in   the  words  of  ver.  24  a  distinct  reminiscence  of  the  parable. 


PARABLE  XX. 


THE  BARREN  FIG  TREE. 

Luke  xiii.  6-9. 
The  eagerness  of  men  to  be  the  first  narrators  of  evil  tidings,  an 
eagerness  which  can  only  spring  from  a  certain  secret  pleasure  in 
them,*  though  that  be  most  often  unacknowledged  even  to  themselves, 
was  perhaps  what  moved  some  of  those  present  to  tell  the  Lord  of  a  new 
outrage  which  Pilate  had  committed.  These  persons  understood  rightly 
that  he  was  speaking,  in  the  words  which  conclude  the  last  chapter,  of 
the  severe  judgments  which  men  bring  upon  themselves  through  their 
sins :  but,  as  is  generally  the  manner  of  men,  instead  of  applying  these 
words  to  their  own  consciences,  they  made  application  of  them  only  to 
others.  Of  the  outrage  itself,— which  however  agrees  well  with  the 
quarrel  between  Herod  and  Pilate,  (Luke  xxiii.  12,)  and  might  have  been 
either  its  cause  or  its  consequence, — there  is  no  historical  notice.  For 
it  is  little  probable  that  the  scattering  or  slaying  by  Pilate  of  some 
fanatical  Samaritan  insurgents,  recorded  by  Josephus,  which  is  here  ad- 
duced by  some  of  the  early  commentators,  is  the  event  referred  to  ;  and 
it  is  something  too  bold  a  change,  as  Lightfoot  observes,  to  make  rebel- 

tuum  sterilitatis  tenebrae,  et  recedente  inde  lumine  veritatis,  carnale  pectus  alta  et  pro- 
funda avaritae  caligo  caeeavit :  pecuniae  tuae  caplivus  et  servus  es,  .  .  serves  pecuniam, 
quae  te  servata  non  servat,  patrimonium  cumulas,  quod  te  pondere  suo  graviCis  onerat  : 
nee  meministi  quid  Deus  responderit  diviti  exuberantium  fructuum  copiam  stulia.  exul- 
tatione  jactanti  .  .  .  Quid  divitiis  tuis  solus  incubas  ?  qui  in  pcenam  tuam  patrimonii 
tui  pondus  exaggeras  ;  ut  quo  locuplelior  saculo  fueris,  pauperior  Deo  fias  7     See 

SuICER'S   TheS.  S.  v.  7rXo«r£w. 

*  Two  languages  at  least,  bear  melancholy  witness  to  the  existence  of  such  a  feel- 
ing, having  a  word  to  express  this  joy  at  calamities  :— the  German,  Schadenfreude  ; 
and  the  Greek,  im^aipcKaKia 


270  THE  BARREN  FIG  TREE. 

ling  Samaritans  of  these  sacrificing  Galilseans.  Among  the  number- 
less atrocities  with  which  the  Romans  exhausted  the  patience  of  the 
Jewish  nation,  and  at  length  drove  it  into  open  resistance,  it  is  nothing 
strange  that  this,  which  must  have  been  but  a  drop  of  water  in  the  sea, 
should  have  remained  unrecorded.  It  is  no  more  stranjje  than  that  the 
slaughter  of  a  few  infants  in  a  small  country  town  like  Bethlehem  should 
find  no  place  in  profane  history.  The  troublesome  insurrectionary  cha- 
racter for  which  the  Galilasans  were  noted,*  may  have  been  the  motive 
or  excuse  for  this  outrage,  which  must  have  been  perpetrated  at  Jerusa- 
lem where  alone  sacrifices  were  offered.  There  is  something  significant 
in  the  language  in  which  the  slaughter  of  these  Galilseans  is  narrated, 
— "  whose  blood  Pilate  had  mingled  with  their  sacrifices."  It  is  proba- 
ble from  our  Lord's  reply,  that  the  narrators  urged  this  circumstance, 
or  at  least  would  have  had  it  understood,  as  a  peculiar  evidence  of  the 
anger  of  God  against  the  sufferers.  If  men  might  have  been  safe  any- 
where or  at  any  time,  it  would  have  been  at  the  altar  of  God,  and  while 
in  the  act  of  offering  sacrifices  unto  him.  But  here,  they  probably 
meant  to  infer,  just  as  Job's  friends  inferred  some  great  guilt  on  his  part 
from  the  greatness  of  his  calamities,  there  must  have  been  some  hidden 
enormous  guilt,  which  rendered  the  very  sacrifices  of  these  men  to  be 
sin, — not  a  propitiation  of  God,  but  a  provocation, — so  that  they  them- 
selves became  piacular  expiations,  their  blood  mingling  with,  and  itself 
becoming  part  of,  the  sacrifices  which  they  offered. 

But  whether  exactly  this  was  what  they  meant  or  not,  the  Lord  at  once 
laid  bare  the  evil  in  their  hearts,  rebuking  the  cruel  judgments  which  they 
certainly  had  formed  concerning  those  that  perished  ;  "Suppose  ye  that 
these  Galilseans  were  sinners  above  all  the  Galilaeans,  because  they  suffered 
such  things  ?"  Hedoes not  deny  that  they  were  sinners,  justly  obnoxious  to 
this  or  any  other  severest  visitation  from  God,  but  he  does  deny  that  their 
calamity  marked  them  out  as  sinners  ahove  all  other  of  their  fellow-coun- 
trymen ;  and  then  he  leads  his  hearers,  as  was  ever  his  manner,  (see  Luke 
xiii.  23  ;  John  xxi.  22,)  to  take  their  eyes  off  from  others,  and  to  fix  them 

*  The  Galilaeans  are  described  by  Josephus  as  industrious  and  brave  ;  but,  though 
not  in  the  least  considered  heretical  like  the  Samaritans,  by  the  other  Jews,  they  were 
yet  held  in  a  certain  degree  of  contempt  by  them,  partly  because  their  blood  was  con- 
sidered less  pure,  many  heathens  being  mingled  among  them,  whence  their  country  is 
called  "  Galilee  of  the  Gentiles,"  (Matt.  iv.  15  ;  see  1  Mace.  i.  15,  TaXiAaia  d\\o<pv>.iov,) 
— and  partly  because  their  faith  was  considered  by  the  Jewish  doctors  as  less  strictly 
orthodox,  (John  vii.  52  ;  see  i.  46  ;  Acts  ii.  7,)  they  in  many  observances  departing 
from  the  Jewish  tradition.  They  spoke  a  bad  dialect,  (Matt.  xxvi.  73,)  characterized 
particularly  by  a  confusion  of  gutturals,  and  a  broad  .Syriac  pronunciation,  so  as  to 
give  occasion  to  the  strangest  mistakes,  and  often  to  be  unintelligible  to  a  native  of 
Jerusalem.     (See  Lightfoot's  Chorograph.  Cent.,  c.  86,  87. 


THE  BARREN  PIG  TREE,  271 

upon  themselves — "  Except  ye  repent,  ye  shall  all  likewise  perish." 
Here,  in  these  words,  we  are  exactly  taught  how  rightly  to  use  the  ca- 
lamities which  befall  others ;  what  their  significance  is,  as  regards  our- 
selves— that  they  are  loud  calls  to  an  earnest  repentance.  For  instead 
of  exalting  ourselves  above  and  against  the  sufferers,  as  though  we  were 
more  righteous  than  they,  and  on  this  account  exempt  from  the  like  tri- 
bulations, we  are  on  the  contrary  to  recognize  that  whatever  befalls  an- 
other, might  justly  have  befallen  ourselves.  So  it  will  be  ever  felt  by 
all  who,  not  altogether  ignorant  of  their  own  sinfulness,  and  of  the  holi- 
ness of  God,  apply  any  right  measure  to  their  own  actual  transgressions 
against  the  law  of  God.  Moreover,  when  we  have  learned  to  see  in 
ourselves  the  bitter  root  of  sin,  we  shall  learn  to  acknowledge  that  what- 
ever deadly  fruit  it  bears  in  another,  it  might  have  borne  the  same  or 
worse,  'under  like  circumstances,  in  ourselves.  But  when  this  is  felt,  it 
will  be  no  longer  possible  to  triumph  over  the  doom  of  any  sinner.  The 
thoughts  of  a  man  thus  taught  to  know  himself  will  fall  back  on  his  own 
life  and  on  his  own  heart.  He  will  see  in  the  chastisement  which  has 
overtaken  another,  the  image  of  the  chastisement  which  might  justly 
have  overtaken  himself;  he  will  see  in  it  a  message  of  warning  addressed 
to  himself.  For  he  will  not  deny,  as  neither  does  our  Lord  here  deny, 
the  intimate  connexion  between  sin  and  suffering,  but  it  is  the  sin  of 
the  race  which  is  linked  with  the  suffering  of  the  race — not,  of  necessity 
at  least,  the  sin  of  the  individual   with  his  particular  suffering.*     So 

*  Strauss  {Lehen  Jesu,  v.  2,  pp.  84—90)  terms  the  faith  in  a  connexion  between  sin 
and  sufTering,  a  "  vulgar  Hebrew  notion,"  from  which  this  passage  might  at  first  sight 
appear  to  clear  the  Lord,  but  which  such  other  passages  as  Matt.  ix.  2,  John  v.  14,  lay 
again  at  his  door,  or  that  of  his  historians  ;  and  says  that  this  passage  and  those  are 
in  contradiction  to  one  another,  and  cannot  be  reconciled.  He  will  not  see,  I  know 
not  whether  in  feigned  or  real  blindness,  that  what  Christ  condemns  is  this,  the  affirm- 
ing that  any  man's  particular  calamity  is  the  consequence  of  his  particular  sin.  He 
affirms,  all  Scripture  affirms,  that  the  sum  total  of  the  calamity  which  oppresses  the 
human  race  is  the  consequence  of  the  sum  total  of  its  sin  ;  nor  does  he  deny  the  rela- 
tion in  which  a  man's  actual  sins  may  stand  to  his  sufferings.  What  he  does  deny  is 
man's  power  to  trace  the  connexion,  and  therefore  his  right  in  any  particular  case,  to 
assert  such  connexion.  And  this,  instead  of  being  a  ''  vulgar  Hebrew  notion,"  is  one 
of  the  most  deeply-rooted  convictions  in  the  universal  human  heart,  witnessed  for  by 
the  proverbs  of  all  nations,  inextricably  entwined  in  all  language — a  truth  which  men 
may  forget  or  deny  in  their  prosperity,  but  which  in  the  hour  of  calamity  they  are 
compelled  to  acknowledge — when  this  confession  is  ever  extorted  from  them,  Our  sin 
hath  found  us  out.  Thus  was  it  with  Joseph's  brethren  ;  in  the  hour  of  their  own 
afflictions,  they  remembered  their  own  sins:  "We  are  verily  guilty  concerning  our 
brother,  .  .  .  therefore  is  this  distress  come  upon  us."  (Gen  xlii.  21 ;  cf  1  Kin.  xvii. 
18  ;  Judg.  i.  7 ;  Acts  xxviii.  4.)  There  are  some  excellent  observations  upon  this 
subject  in  Hengstenberg's  Authentic  d.  Fentateuches,  v.  2,  p.  577,  seq. 


272  THE  BARREN  FIG  TREE. 

far  from  denying  this  connexion,  the  more  the  Christian  conscience  is 
developed  in  him,  the  more  freely  he  will  acknowledge  it,  the  more  close 
and  intimate  will  it  appear.  At  every  new  instance  of  moral  and  phy- 
sical evil  which  he  encounters  in  a  world  which  has  departed  from  God, 
he  will  anew  justify  God  as  the  Author  of  all  good,  even  when  he  proves 
himself  negatively  such,  in  the  misery  of  man  as  he  is  a  sinful  creature 
separated  from  his  God,  as  well  as  positively  in  the  blessedness  of  man 
as  he  is  redeemed  and  reunited  with  himself. 

Our  blesssed  Lord,  to  set  the  truth  he  would  fain  enforce  yet  more 
plainly  before  his  hearers,  himself  brings  forward  another  instance  of  a 
swift  destruction  overtaking  many  persons  at  once  : — "  Those  eighteen 
on  whom  the  tower  of  Siloam  *  fell  and  slew  them,  think  ye  that  they 
were  sinners  above  all  men  that  dwelt  in  Jerusalem  ?"  Neither  in  this 
case  were  uncharitable  judgments  to  find  place,  as  though  these  were 
sinners  above  all  men,  as  though  they  owed  a  larger  debt  ■("  to  God  than 
others.  But  while  none  were  to  attribute  a  preponderance  of  guilt  to 
those  who  perished,  yet  here  also,  in  these  accidents,  in  this  disharmony 
of  outward  nature,  all  were  to  recognize  a  call  to  repentance,  partly  as 
these  swift  calamities  should  convince  them  of  the  uncertain  tenure  of 
life,  and  how  soon  therefore  the  day  of  grace  might  be  closed  for  them  ; 
but  chiefly  as  awakening  in  them  a  sense  of  consciousness  of  sin.  For 
the  discords  of  outward  nature,  storms  and  floods,  earthquakes  and  pes- 
tilences, and  so  too  all  disasters  such  as  that  one  here  referred  to,  are 
parts  of  that  curse,  that  subjection  of  the  whole  creation  to  vanity,  con- 
sequ3nt  on  the  sin  of  man.  All  were  to  speak  to  sinners  in  the  same 
warning  language, — "  Except  ye  repent,  ye  shall  all  likewise  perish." 
There  is  a  force  in  the  original  word  {waavTag),  which  our  English  "  like- 
wise," from  its  frequent  lax  usage  as  a  synonyme  for  "  as  well,"  fails 
to  give.  The  threat  is,  that  they  shall  literally  in  like  wise  perish,  in  a 
manner  similar  to  that  in  which  these  perished  :  for,  as  it  has  often  been 
observed,  the  resemblance  is  more  than  accidental  between  these  two 
calamities  here  adduced,  and  the  ultimate  destruction  which  did  over- 
take the  rebellious  Jews,  those  who  refused  to  obey  the  Lord's  bidding, 
and  to  repent.     As  the  tower  of  Siloam  fell  and  crushed  eighteen  of  the 

*  This  tower  was,  from  its  name,  probably  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  the 
fountain  of  Siloam,  though  Josephus  {Bell.  Jud.,  6.  7,  2)  would  seem  to  distinguish  a 
region  of  Siloam  from  the  fountain  bearing  that  name.  Though  the  notices  of  Siloam 
are  so  numerous,  both  in  the  Scriptures  and  in  the  Jewish  historian,  modern  topo- 
graphers are  altogether  at  issue  concerning  its  true  position. 

t  Literally,  "  Think  yc  they  were  <2ei/ors  above  all  men?"  a  remarkable  phrase, 
selected  for  its  peculiar  fitness  here,  and  with  reference  no  doubt  to  chapter  xii.  58,59. 
(Cf.  Matt.  V.  25  ;  vi.  12  ;  xviii.  24  ;  Luke  vii.  41.) 


THE  BARREN  FIG  TREE.  273 

dwellers  at  Jerusalem,  exactly  so  multitudes  of  its  inhabitants  were 
crushed  beneath  the  ruins  of  their  temple  and  their  city  ;  and  during 
the  last  siege  and  assault  of  that  city,  there  were  numbers  also,  who 
were  pierced  through  by  the  Roman  darts  in  the  courts  of  the  temple, 
in  the  very  act  of  preparing  their  sacrifices,  so  that  literally  their  blood, 
like  that  of  these  Galilaeans,  was  mingled  with  their  sacrifices,  one  blood 
with  another. 

Those  two  calamities  then  are  adduced  as  slight  foretastes  of  the 
doom  prepared  for  the  whole  rebellious  nation.  If  the  warning  was 
taken,  if  they  would  even  now  bring  forth  fruit  meet  for  repentance,  that 
doom  might  still  be  averted  :  but  if  not,  if  they  refused  to  return,  then 
these  calamities  would  in  the  end  be  headed  up  by  that  one  great  and 
final  catastrophe,  which  would  leave  no  room  for  repentance.  In  the 
meanwhile  they  were  to  see  in  the  fact  that  as  yet  the  strokes  descended 
upon  them  for  warning,  and  not  the  stroke  for  excision,  a  proof  of  the 
long-suffering  of  God,  not  willing  that  any  should  perish  :  as  Olshausen 
observes, — "  the  discourse  of  Jesus,  severe  and  full  of  rebuke,  is  closed 
by  a  parable,  in  which  the  merciful  Son  of  man  again  brings  the  side  of 
grace  prominently  forward.  He  appears  as  the  Intercessor  for  men  be- 
fore the  righteousness  of  the  heavenly  Father,  as  he  who  obtains  for 
them  space  for  repentance.  This  idea  of  the  deferring  of  the  judgment 
of  God,  so  to  leave  men  opportunity  to  turn,  runs  through  all  the  Holy 
Scripture  ;  before  the  deluge,  a  period  of  an  hundred  and  twenty  years 
was  fixed  ;  (Gen.  vi.  3  ;)  Abraham  prayed  for  Sodom  ;  (Gen.  xviii.  24  ;) 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  did  not  follow  till  forty  years  after  the  as- 
cension of  the  Lord ;  and  the  coming  again  of  Christ  is  put  off  through 
the  patience  of  God.  (2  Pet.  iii.  9.)" 

This  parable  then  is  at  once  concerning  the  long-suffering  and  the 
severity  of  God  ;  it  begins  thus  :  "  A  certain  man  had  a  Jig  tree  planted 
in  his  vineyard."  The  vineyard  here  must  be  the  world,  and  not,  as  in 
the  parable  of  the  Wicked  Husbandmen,  the  kingdom  of  God  ;  in  the 
midst  of  the  world  the  Jewish  people  were  set  and  appointed  that  they 
should  bear  much  fruit,  that  they  should  bring  much  glory  to  God. 
(Deut.  iv.  6.)  Yet  though  the  parable  was  directly  pointed  at  them,  it 
is  also  of  universal  application ;  for  as  Israel  according  to  the  flesh  was 
the  representative  of  all  and  of  each,  who  in  after  times  should  be  elect- 
ed out  of  the  world  to  the  privileges  of  a  nearer  knowledge  of  God,  so  is 
a  warning  herein  contained  for  the  Gentile  Church  and  for  every  indi- 
vidual soul.*       Indeed  there  is  personal  application  made  of  the  image 


*  Such  application  of  it  Ambrose  makes  (Exp.  in  Luc,  1.  7,  c.  171) :  Quod  de  Ju- 
daeis  dictum,  omnibus  cavendum  arbitror,  et  nobis  maxima :  ne  fecundum  Ecclesiae 


274  THE  BARREN  FIG  TREE. 

which  supplies  the  groundwork  of  the  parable,  by  the  Baptist,  (Matt.  iii. 
10,)  and  of  an  image  very  nearly  the  same  by  Christ  himself.  (John  xv. 
2.) — The  possessor  of  the  fig  tree  "  came  and  sought  fruit  thereon.'^ 
What  is  here  parabolically  related  was  on  another  occasion  typically 
done  in  a  kind  of  sermo  realis  by  the  Saviour  ;  "  seeing  a  fig  tree  afar 
off,  having  leaves,  he  came,  if  haply  he  might  find  anything  thereon." 
(Mark  xi.  13.)  But  he  then,  as  the  master  of  the  vineyard  now,  ^'^  found 
none."  Long  since  the  prophets  had  upbraided  their  people,  and  laid 
this  charge  against  them,  that  though  ordained  to  bring  forth  much  fruit 
to  the  glory  of  God,  they  had  fallen  from  their  high  calling,  and  brought 
forth  either  no  fruit  or  bitter  fruit.  (Isai.  v.  2,  7  ;  Jer.  xv.,  and,  if  our 
version  is  to  stand,  Hos.  x.  1.) 

There  is  a  wonderful  significance  in  the  simple  image  running  through 
the  whole  of  Scripture,  according  to  which  men  are  compared  to  trees, 
and  their  work  to  fruit  * — the  fruit  being  the  organic  produce  and  evi- 
dence of  the  inner  life,  not  something  arbitrarily  attached  or  fastened  on 
from  without.  (Ps.  i.  3  ;  Jer.  xvii.  8  ;  John  xv.  2,  4,  5 ;  Rom.  vii.  4.) 
It  is  a  comparison  which  helps  greatly  to  set  forth  the  true  relation  be- 
tween faith  and  works,  which  relation  is,  in  fact,  just  as  plainly  declared 
by  our  Lord,  when  he  says,  "  A  good  tree  bringeth  not  forth  corrupt 
fruit,  neither  doth  a  corrupt  tree  bring  forth  good  fruit,"  (Luke  vi.  43,) 
as  by  St.  Paul  in  any  of  his  Epistles.  There  are  three  kinds  of  works 
spoken  of  in  the  New  Testament,  which  may  all  be  illustrated  from  this 
image  :  first,  good  works,  when  the  tree,  being  made  good,  bears  fruit  of 
the  same  character  ;■)"  then  dead  works,:}:  such  as  have  a  fair  outward  ap- 
pearance, but  are  not  the  living  outgrowth  of  the  renewed  man — fruit,  as 
it  were  attached  and  fastened  on  from  without,  alms  given  that  they  may 
be  gloried  in,  prayers  made  that  they  may  be  seen,  works  such  as  were 


locum  vacui  meritis  occupemus :  qui  quasi  melogranata  benedicti,  fructus  ferre  debemus 
internos,  fructus  pudoris,  fructus  conjunctionis,  fructus  mutuae  caritatis  et  amoris,  sub 
uno  utero  Ecclesiae  matris  inclusi :  ne  aura  noceat,  ne  grando  decutiat,  ne  aestus  cupid- 
itatis  exurat,  ne  humoris  imber  elidat. 

*  BttiGEL  on  Matt.  vii.  16:  Fructus  est,  quod  homo,  tanquam  arbor,  ex  bona,  vel 
mala,  indole  s\ik,  omnes  interiores  facullates  permeante.scaturit.  Doctrina  undecunque 
compilata  et  linguae  allignta  non  est  fructus  ;  sed  id  omne  quod  doctor  aliquis  ex  suo 
corde  promit  et  profert,  in  sermone  et  aclione.ceu  quiddam  ex  intimfi  sua,  constitutione 
fluens,  ut  lac  quod  mater  prapbet  ex  se.  See  an  admirable  sermon  by  Augustine 
(Serm.  72)  on  the  tree  and  its  fruits,  as  setting  forth  the  relation  between  a  man  and  his 
works. 

t  "Epyo  0io5   (John   vi.  28),  Ka\a  ipya  (Tit.  ii.  7),  dyaOa  cpya  (1  Tim.  ii.  10),  ipya 
niarebi!  (1  Thess.  i.  3). 

t  'Epya  vcKpa  (Heb.  ix.  14),  and  sometimes  'ipya  v6pov  (Gal.  ii.  16). 


THE  BARREN  FIG  TREE.  275 

most  of  those  of  the  Pharisees  :  and  lastly,  wicked  works,*  when  the  cor- 
rupt tree  bears  fruit  manifestly  of  its  own  kind.  Here  it  is,  of  course, 
those  good  fruits  which  the  tree  is  accused  of  not  bearing :  both  the 
other  kinds  of  fruit  the  Jewish  nation  abundantly  bore. 

For  "  three  years"  the  master  of  the  vineyard  complains  that  he  had 
come  seeking  fruit,  and  in  vain.  Of  these  "  three  years  "  very  many 
explanations  have  been  offered.  Augustine  understands  by  them  the 
times  of  the  natural  law, — of  the  written  law, — and  now,  at  last,  of 
grace.  Theophylact ;  "Christ  came  thrice,  by  Moses,  by  the  prophets, 
and  thirdly,  in  his  own  person  ;"  or,  when  application  of  the  parable  is 
made  to  the  individual, — in  childhood,  in  manhood,  in  old  age.  Olshau- 
sen  thinks  that  they  may  refer  to  the  three  years  of  the  Lord's  open 
ministry  upon  earth;  but  Grotius  had  already  observed  against  this 
view,  that  if  the  three  years  are  chronological,  the  one  year  more,  which 
at  the  intercession  of  the  dresser  of  the  vineyard  is  granted  to  the  tree, 
ought  certainly  to  be  chronological  also,  whereas  not  one,  but  forty 
years  of  grace  were  allowed  to  the  Jews,  before  their  final  destruction. 
— "  Culil  down,''  (see  Isai.  v.  5,  6  ;  Matt.  vii.  19 ;  Luke  xix.  41-44,) 
'^  why  ^  cumbereth  it  the  ground  ?"  St.  Basil  beautifully  observes  the  love 
which  breathes  even  in  the  threatenings  of  God.  "  This,"  he  says,  "  is 
peculiar  to  the  clemency  of  God  toward  men,  that  he  does  not  bring  in 
punishment  silently  or  secretly  ;  hut  by  his  threatenings  first  proclaims 
them  to  be  at  hand,  thus  inviting  sinners  to  repentance."  There  is  a 
blessed  sense  in  which  that  word  of  the  Greek  proverb,  "  The  feet  of 
the  avenging  deities  are  shod  with  wool,"  to  express  the  noiselessness  of 
their  approach,  is  not  true.  Before  the  hewing  down  begins,  the  axe  is  laid 
at  the  root  of  the  tree,  (Matt.  iii.  10,)  laid  there,  as  prompt  and  at  hand 
for  immediate  use,  though  as  yet  no  blow  has  been  struck  ;  but  laid  there 
also,  that  if  possible,  this  sign  of  what  is  threatened  may  avert  the 
actual  fulfilment  of  the  threat.:}:    (2  Chron.  xxxiii.  10.)     The  "  cumber- 

*  "Epyu  novripa    (1    John   iii.  12),   cpya  Tov  axdrovs  (Rotn.  xiii.  12),    rris  aapKd;    (Gal. 

V.  19). 

t  We  have  missed  the  "  also"  here,  (ii'ari  k  a  i  nV  yfjv  Karapyd  ;)  which  is  really 
the  key-word  of  the  sentence  :  Wherefore  should  the  tree  stand,  when,  besides  being 
itself  barren,  it  also  injures  the  soil  in  which  it  is  set  1  The  Vulgate  has  held  it  fast : 
Ut  quid  etiam  terrara  occupat  ?  and  in  De  Wette's  German  translation  :  Warum 
macht  er  auch  noch  das  Land  unfruchtbar  ?  Gregory  ihe  Great  (Horn.  31  in  Evang.) 
shows  that  it  had  not  escaped  him :  Postquam  enim  se  perdidit,  quserendum  est  cur  et 
alios  premat.  And  Bengel :  Non  modo  nil  prodest,  sed  etiam  laticem  avertit,  quem 
e  terra  sucturae  erant  vites,  et  soles  interpellat,  et  spatium  occupat. 

t  Augustine  :  Si  damnare  vellet,  taceret.  Nemovolens  ferire  dicit,  Observa  ;  and 
Chrysostom  has  the  same  thought  (De  Fmnit.,  Horn.  7,  ad  finem) :  'ATret\ei  rnv  rtfiupi- 
av    'iva  ipiyoijjLtv  Ttjv  -rrtXpav  rrii  Ti/itopiai'   tpo/Sti  no  Xiiyto,  iVa   //^  Ko\aori  tS>  cpyto.      We  have 


276  THE  BARREN  FIG  TREE. 

ing  "*  the  ground  implies  something  more  than  that  it  occupied  the  place 
which  might  have  been  filled  by  another  and  a  fruit-bearing  tree  :  the 
barren  tree  injured  the  land,  spreading  injurious  shade,  and  drawing  off  to 
itself  the  fatness  and  nourishment  which  should  have  gone  to  the  trees  that 
would  have  made  a  return.  Thus,  like  this  fig  tree,  the  Jewish  Church 
not  merely  did  not  itself  bring  forth  fruits  of  righteousness,  but  it  in- 
jured the  ground  in  which  il  was  planted.  Through  them  the  name  of 
God  was  blasphemed  among  the  Gentiles  ;  (Rom.  ii.  24  ;)  they  hindered 
the  spread  of  the  knowledge  of  God  among  other  nations,  through  the 
mischievous  influences  of  their  pride  and  hypocrisy  ;  (Matt,  xxiii.  13, 
15;)  even  as  it  is  true  of  every  individual  sinner,  that  he  is  not  merely 
unprofitable  to  God,  but  has  a  mischievous  influence  ;  by  his  evil  exam- 
ple, by  his  corrupt  maxims,  he  is  an  hindrance  and  a  stumbling-block  to 
others  in  the  way  of  their  attainment  of  salvation. 

The  dresser  of  the  vineyard,  who  pleads  for  the  tree,  and  would,  if 
it  might  be,  avert  its  doom,  saying,  "  Lord,  lei  it  alone  this  year  also,"  is 
manifestly  the  Son  of  God  himself,  the  Intercessor  for  men  ;  (Job  xxxiii. 
23  ;  Zech,  i.  12;  Heb.  vii.  25  ;)  yet  not  as  though  the  Father  and  the 
Son  had  different  minds  concerning  sinners, — as  though  the  counsels  of 
the  Father  were  wrath,  and  of  the  Son,  mercy  ;  for  righteousness  and 
love  are  not  qualities  in  him,  who  is  Righteousness  and  who  is  Love  ; — 
they  cannot,  therefore,  be  set  one  against  the  other,  since  they  are  his 

a  parallel,  Heb.  vi.  7,  8.  The  earth  which  beareth  thorns  and  briers  is  there  described 
as  Karapas  iyyui,  but  though  thus  "  nigh  unto  cursing,"  the  curse  has  not  lighted  on  it 
yet ; — it  is  foreannounced,  that  so  it  may  not  arrive. 

*  The  word  is  not  altogether  adequate  ;  nor  is  it  very  easy  to  see  what  induced 
to  its  selection.  It  first  appears  in  Tyndale's  translation.  In  the  Geneva,  "Why 
keepeth  it  the  ground  barren?"  takes  its  place,  but  it  reappears  in  the  authorized  ver- 
sion. Doubtless  the  verb,  to  comber,  (cognate  with  the  German  kummern)  had  a 
stronger  and  more  extensive  sense  in  early  English  than  it  has  retained  in  later  use, 
but  mainly  the  sense  of  harassing  or  annoying.  Like  the  occupat  of  the  Vulgate, 
which  is  evidently  too  weak,  it  fails  to  give  us  the  Karapyn  (=dpy(5«',  or  icpyov  noiei) 
of  the  original.  Impedit,  which  appears  to  have  been  in  the  old  Italic,  is  better,  for 
the  tree  is  charged  not  merely  with  being  negatively,  but  positively  evil ;  it  marred 
and  mischiefed  the  soil  beneath  and  around  it.  Gregory  the  Great  :  Stat  desuper  arbor 
infructuosa,  et  subtus  terra  sterilis  jacet.  Infructuosaj  arboris  desuper  umbra  densatur, 
et  solis  radius  ad  terram  descendere  nequaquam  permittitur.  Corn,  a  Lapide  :  Terram 
inertem  et  steriiem  reddit,  turn  umbra  sua,  turn  radicibus  suis,  quibus  succum  terras 
vicinis  vitibus  eripit  et  prjeripit.  Even  so  we  have  in  Shakspeare  : — 
"  The  noisome  weeds  that  without  profit  suck 
The  soil's  fertility  from  wholesome  flowers." 
The  word  KarapyeXv  is  a  very  favourite  one  with  St.  Paul,  occurring  no  less  than  twen- 
ty-six times  in  his  Epistles  ;  and  only  here  besides  in  the  N.  T.  We  have  apynii  and 
dKiipirouj  joined  together,  2  Pet.  i.  8.     See  Suicer's  Thes.,  s.  v. 


THE  BARREN  FIG  TREE.  277 

essential  being.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  we  must  not,  while  escaping  this 
error,  fall  into  the  opposite,  letting  go  the  reality  of  God's  wrath  against  sin, 
— the  reality  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  not  merely  on  the  side  with  which  it 
looks  towards  men,  but  also  on  the  side  with  which  it  looks  towards  God  ; 
the  death  of  Christ  wasreally  a  propitiation  of  God,  not  merely  an  assurance 
of  God's  love  towards  sinners.  The  way  of  escape  from  both  these  errors  is 
shown  to  us  in  those  words  ;  "  the  Lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the 
world ;"  (Rev.  xiii.  8 ;)  "  foreordained  before  the  foundation  of  the  world." 
(1  Pet.  i.  20.)  The  sacrifice,  though  of  necessity  outwardly  brought  to  pass 
in  time,  "  now  manifest  in  these  last  times  for  you,"  yet  took  place  in  the 
purpose  of  him  who  offered,  and  of  him  who  accepted  it,  before  all  time,  or 
rather,  out  of  time;  so  that  we  must  not  conceive  of  man  as  ever  not  contem- 
plated by  God  in  Christ :  there  was  no  change  in  God's  mind  concerning 
the  sinner,*  because  he  who  beholdeth  the  end  from  the  beginning,  had 
beheld  him  from  the  first  as  reconciled  and  re-constituted  in  his  Son. 
(Rom.  xvi.  25,  26.)  In  this  view  we  may  consider  the  high  priestly  in- 
tercession of  Christ  as  having  found  place  and  been  effectual  even  be- 
fore he  passed  from  earth  into  the  heavens, — before  he  had  carried  his 
own  blood  into  the  truly  Holy  of  holies  •.'\  for  to  that  intercession  all 
the  long-suffering  of  God  toward  sinners  is  to  be  referred  ; — "  The  earth 
and  all  the  inhabitants  thereof  are  dissolved  ;  I  bear  up  the  pillars  of  it." 
(Ps,  Ixxv.  3.)  Some  of  the  Fathers  see  here  allusion  also  to  the  inter- 
cessory work,  which  the  Church,  in  its  healthy  members,  is  ever  carry- 
ing forward  on  behalf  of  its  sick  members,  or  that  of  the  Church  for  the 
world. :[:  No  doubt  such  intercession  is  always  going  forward,  and  has 
a  real  worth  before  God,  (Gen.  xviii.  23-33 ;  Exod.  xxxii.  11;  Job 
xlii.  8  ;  1  Sam.  xii.  19,  23 ;  2  Kin.  xix.  24 ;  Jer.  xv.  1 ;  1  Tim.  ii.  1-4  j 
Jam.  v.  14-18  ;  1  John  v.  16,)  and  such  need  not  here  be  of  necessity 
excluded  ;  but  at  the  same  time,  it  seems  simpler  and  more  satisfactory, 
with  Theophylact  and  others,  to  refer  this  primarily  to  that  one  Inter- 
cessor, on  whose  intercession  that  of  all  others  must  ultimately  rest.  It 
is  plain,  too,  that  he  must  be  meant,  for  the  pleader  now  is  the  same  who 


*  Augustine  (Serm.  254,  c.  2) :  Interpellat  misericors  misericordem.  Qui  enim  se 
volebat  exhibere  misericordem,  ipse  sibi  opposuit  intercessonim. 

t  Cocceius  and  his  followers,  as  is  well  known,  laid  much  stress  on  the  distinction 
between  the  Traptun  (Rom.  iii.  25)  and  the  u,jjc<Tti  a^mpnwi'.  The  first,  the /Pretermission 
of  sins  through  the  forbearance  of  God,  they  said  was  what  the  Son  obtained  for  men 
till  he  had  actually  come  in  the  flesh,  and  then  ensued  the  aipcais,  or  entire  remission, 
the  last  going  along  with  the  gift  of  regeneration,  exclusively  the  prerogative  of  the 
New  Covenant. 

t  As  Augustine  (Serm.  110,  c.  1):  Qui  intercedit  colonus  est  omnis  sanctus,  qui 
intra  Ecclesiam  orat  pro  lis  qui  sunt  extra  Ecclesiam. 


278  THE  BARREN  FIG  TREE. 

but  for  this  pleading  should  have  executed  the  sentence.  But  to  him 
only,  to  whom  all  judgment  is  committed,  could  the  command  have  been 
given,  "  Cut  it  down.'^  Certainly  it  would  not  have  been  given  to  men  ; 
for  if  to  any  beside  him,  it  must  have  been  to  the  angels.  (Matt.  xiii. 
29,30.) 

As  he  pleads  for  men,  not  with  the  purpose  that  they  may  continue 
in  their  sins  with  impunity,  but  obtains  that  their  sentence  may  for  a 
while  be  suspended  to  see  if  they  will  turn  and  repent,  so  the  vine- 
dresser here  pleads  for  the  barren  tree,  not  that  it  may  be  suffered  to 
stand  for  ever,  though  it  continue  in  barrenness ;  (for  on  the  contrary 
he  consents  to  its  doom,  if  it  thus  continue  unfruitful,  as  a  doom  right- 
eous and  good  ;)*  but  he  asks  for  it  one  year  of  grace,  to  see  if  it  will 
yet  do  better  :  "  If  it  hear  fruit,  well  .-\  and  if  not,  then  after  that  thou 
shalt  cut  it  down."  During  this  year  he  "  he  will  dig  about  it  and  dung 
it  ;"  that  is,  he  will  hollow  out  the  earth  from  around  the  stem  of  the 
tree,  and  afterwards  fill  up  the  hollow  with  manure  ;  as  one  may  often 
see  done  now  to  the  orange  trees  in  the  south  of  Italy. :[:  By  these  ap- 
pliances is  signified  that  multiplication  of  the  means  of  grace,  which  in 
God's  dealing  with  men,  we  may  so  often  observe  to  find  place  at  the 
last  moment, — before  those  means  are  withdrawn  for  ever.  Thus,  be- 
fore the  flood,  they  had  Noah,  a  "  preacher  of  righteousness," — before 
the  great  catastrophes  of  the  Jews,  they  had  among  them  some  of  their 
most  eminent  prophets,  as  Jeremiah  before  the  taking  of  Jerusalem  by 
the  Chaldaeans, — and  before  its  final  destruction,  they  enjoyed  the  minis- 
try of  Christ  and  of  his  apostles.  To  this  last,  no  doubt,  allusion  is  here 
more  immediately  made,  to  that  larger,  richer  supply  of  grace, — that 
freer  outpouring  of  the  Spirit,  which  was  consequent  on  the  death,  and 
resurrection,  and  ascension,  of  the  Lord.  So  Theophylact  explains  this 
digf^ing  about  and  manuring  the  hitherto  unfruitful  tree :  "  Though 
they  were  not  made  better  by  the  law  and  the  prophets,  nor  yielded  fruit 
of  repentance,  yet  will  I  water  them  by  my  doctrines  and  passion  ;  it 
may  be,  they  will  then  yield  fruits  of  obedience."  No  doubt  if  the  his- 
tory of  men's  lives  were  writ  as  large  as  the  history  of  nations  and  of 
churches,  and  could  we,  therefore,  read  the  history  of  those  as  plainly 
as  of  these,  we  should  oftener  perceive  that  what  is  true  of  the  last  is 
also  true  of  the  first :  we  should  mark  critical  moments  in  men's  lives 

*  With  a  play  on  the  words,  Augustine  {Serm.  110,  c.  4)  :  Dilata  est  securis,  noli 
esse  secura ;  and  elsewhere,  Distulit  securim,  non  dedit  securitaiem. 

t  We  have  the  same  suspended  sense,  with  d<,  or  some  word  similar,  understood, 
Luke  xxii.  42. 

X  For  a  useful  spiritual  application  of  the  words,  see  Aigustine,  Serm.  254  and 
110,  c.  1  :  Sordes  cultoris,  dolores  sunt  peccatoris.    Cf.  Ambrose,  De  Poenit.,  1. 2,  c.  1. 


THE  BARREN  FIG  TREE.  279 

to  which  all  the  future  was  linked,  on  which  it  was  made  altogether  to 
depend, — times  of  gracious  visitation  which  it  was  of  the  deepest  impor- 
tance to  know,  and  not  to  suffer  to  escape  unobserved  and  unimproved. 
Such  a  time  of  visitation  to  the  Jewish  people  was  the  Lord's  ministry 
in  the  midst  of  it;  (Luke  xix.  42;)  then  was  the  digging  about  and 
manuring  the  tree  which  had  been  so  long  barren.  But  it  abode  in  its 
barrenness, — its  day  of  grace  came  to  an  end  ;  and,  as  here  is  threaten- 
ed, it  was  inexorably  cut  down.  We  may  observe,  however,  that  in 
the  parable  our  Lord  does  not  actually  affirm  that  the  tree  will  certainly 
continue  unfruitful  to  the  last,  but  suggests  the  other  alternative  as  pos- 
sible;  "If  it  bear  fruit,  tvell."  For  thus  the  door  of  repentance  is  left 
open  to  all ;  they  are  warned  that  they  are  not  shut  up,  except  indeed 
by  their  own  evil  will,  in  unbelief  and  hardness  of  heart,*  that  it  is 
they  only  themselves  who  make  inevitable  their  doom. 


PARABLE  XXI. 


THE  GREAT  SUPPER. 

Luke  xiv.  15-24. 

It  it  is  not  worth  while  to  repeat  the  arguments  which  seem  to  prove 
beyond  the  shadow  of  a  doubt,  that  this  parable,  and  that  recorded  at 
Matt.  xxii.  2,  are  entirely  different,  spoken  upon  different  occasions, 
and  with  (partially)  different  aims.  On  the  present  occasion,  the  Lord 
had  been  invited  to  eat  bread  at  the  house  of  one  of  the  chief  of  the 
Pharisees.     (Ver.  1.)     Much  happened  at  this  meal,  which  was  proba- 

*  Rosenmiiller  (Alte  und  Neue  Morgenland,  v.  5,  p.  187)  quotes  from  an  Arabian 
writer  the  following  receipt  for  curing  a  palm  tree  of  barrenness.  "  Thou  must  take  a 
hatchet,  and  go  to  the  tree  with  a  friend,  unto  whom  thou  sayest,  I  will  cut  down  this 
tree,  for  it  is  unfruitful.  He  answers.  Do  not  so,  this  year  it  will  certainly  bear  fruit. 
But  the  other  says.  It  must  needs  be, — it  must  be  hewn  down  ;  and  gives  the  stem  of 
the  tree  three  blows  with  the  back  of  the  hatchet.  But  the  other  restrains  him,  cry- 
ing. Nay,  do  it  not,  thou  wilt  certainly  have  fruit  from  it  this  year,  only  have  patience 
with  it,  and  be  not  over-hasty  in  cutting  it  down  ;  if  it  still  refuses  to  bear  fruit,  then 
cut  it  down.  Then  will  the  tree  that  year  be  certainly  fruitful  and  bear  abundantly." 
The  same  slory  is  to  be  found  in  Ruckert's  Brahmanische  Erzdhlungen,  so  that  it 
would  appear  widely  spread  in  the  East ;  also  in  S.  te  Sacy's  Chrest.  Arabe,  v.  2,  p. 
379 ;  and  in  the  collection  of  tracts  De  Ee  Eusticd,  entitled  Geoponica. 


280  THE  BARREN  FIG  TREE. 

bly  no  common  meal,  but  an  entertainment  prepared  with  much  cost  and 
expense,  and  at  which  many,  and  it  is  likely,  guests  of  consideration,  were 
present.  This  would  seem  probable  for  many  reasons  ;  there  were  con- 
tests among  the  guests  for  precedency,  or  at  least  a  silent,  but  not  un- 
observed  or  unrebuked,  attempt  on  the  part  of  some  to  select  for  them- 
selves the  places  of  honour  and  dignity.*  (Ver.  7.)  Then  again,  in 
the  Lord's  address  to  his  host,  in  which  he  points  out  to  him  a  more  ex- 
cellent way  of  hospitality,  (ver.  12,)  it  would  seem  implied  that  at  that 
feast  were  present  many  of  his  kindred  and  richer  neighbours — such  a 
supposition  adds  much  force  to  the  admonishment.  And  yet  further, 
our  Saviour  so  often  borrowed  the  images  of  his  parables  from  that  which 
was  actually  at  the  moment  present  before  his  eyes  and  the  eyes  of  his 
hearers — that  his  speaking  of  a  certain  man  having  made  a  great  supper, 
would  seem  to  indicate  that  this  also  at  which  he  was  now  sitting  was 
no  ordinary,  but  rather  some  costly  and  numerously  attended,  enter- 
tainment. 

The  circumstances  out  of  which  the  parable  immediately  grew  were 
these  :  one  that  sat  at  the  table  with  him,  after  hearing  some  of  the  gra- 
cious words  that  proceeded  out  of  his  mouth,  could  not  help  exclaiming, 
certainly  not  in  the  spirit  of  mockery,  rather  in  approval  and  admira- 
tion, "  Blessed  is  he  that  shall  eat  bread  in  the  kingdom  of  God  !"  But 
how,  it  may  be  asked,  came  the  Lord's  last  words,  "  Thou  shalt  be 
recompensed  at  the  resurrection  of  the  just,"  to  elicit  exactly  this  obser- 
vation ?  what  natural  connexion  was  there  between  the  two,  for  such  a 
connexion  is  evidently  marked  in  the  narrative  ?  When  we  keep  in 
mind  the  notions  then  current  among  the  Jews  concerning  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  just,  or,  which  was  the  same  thing,  the  open  setting  up  of  the 
kingdom  of  God, — that  it  would  be  ushered  in  by  a  great  and  glorious 
festival,!  of  which  all  the  members  of  that  kingdom,  should  be  partakers, 
it  is  at  once  easy  to  perceive  how  this  man's  thoughts,  a  man  it  might  be 
with  certain  favorable  dispositions  towards  the  truth,  but  of  a  carnal 
mind  like  the  most  of  his  countrymen,  should  have  passed  on  from  the 
resurrection  of  the  just,  of  which  Jesus  spake,  to  the  great  festival  which 
was  to  accompany  that  I'csurrection,  or  rather,  should  have  interpreted 
the  Lord's  words,  when  he  spake  of  the  recompense  that  would  then  be 
given  to  the  merciful,  as  meaning  participation  in  that  festival.  His 
exclamation,  "  Blessed  is  he  that  shall  eat  bread  in  the  kingdom  of  God  !" 

*  Tliis  snatching  at  the  first  places  is  adduced  by  Theophrastus  {Char.  21)  as  an 
example  of  the  fUKpoiiiiXiTinia.     See  also  Becker's  Charikles,  v.  1,  p.  427. 

t  See  Eisenmenger's  Entdeckt.  Judentlium,v.  2,  p.  872,  seq. — Augustine  warning 
against  a  carnal  interpretation,  exclaims  concerning  this  supper :  Noli  parare  fauces, 
Bed  cor. 


THE  GREAT  SUPPER.  281 

might  be  unfolded  thus  ;  "  Blessed  is  he  that  shall  share  in  the  recom- 
pense whereof  thou  speakest,  in  the  reward  which  shall  be  given 
at  the  resurrection  of  the  just."  His  words  are  an  earthly  way  of  say- 
ing, "  Blessed  and  holy  is  he  that  hath  part  in  the  first  resurrection  !"  It 
is  likely  from  the  warning  conveyed  in  the  parable,  which  we  are  told 
was  particularly,  though  we  cannot  suppose  exclusively,  addressed  to 
him,  that  he  spoke  these  words  with  a  very  easy  and  comfortable  assur- 
ance that  he  should  make  one  of  those  that  should  thus  eat  bread  in  the 
kingdom  of  God.  He,  as  a  Jew,  as  a  member  of  the  elect  nation,  had 
been  invited  to  that  great  feast  of  God  ;  that  was  all  which  he  paused  to 
consider ;  and  not  whether  he  had  truly  accepted  the  call,  or,  on  the 
contrary,  had  suffered  carnal  desires  and  lusts  to  keep  him  away  from 
rightly  embracing  it ;  certainly  he  had  not  at  all  considered  whether  in 
the  refusal  to  enter  into  that  higher  spiritual  life  of  the  Gospel,  to  which 
Christ  was  now  inviting  him,  there  was  not  involved  his  own  ultimate 
rejection  from  the  heavenly  festival.*  For  his  warning,  and  for  the 
warning  of  all  like-minded  with  him,  the  parable  was  spoken. 

"  A  certain  man  made  a  great  supper. ^^  Many  have  said,  "  a  supper  " 
because  as  a  supper  takes  place  at  evening,  so  it  was  in  the  evening  of 
time,  the  last  hour,  (1  John  ii.  18  ;  1  Cor.  x.  11.)  that  Christ  came,  and 
invited  men  to  the  fulness  of  Gospel  blessings.  But  this  is  pressing  the 
word  of  the  original  f  too  far,  which  is  of  very  wide  and  fluctuating  use  : 
a  great  feast,  and  nothing  more,  is  signified.  Men's  relish  is  so  little, 
their  desire  so  faint  for  the  things  heavenly,  therefore  are  they  present- 
ed to  them  under  such  inviting  images  as  this,  that  if  possible  they  may 
be  stirred  up  to  a   more   earnest  longing  after  them.:}: — '■^  And  hade^ 

*  Augustine  (Serm.  112,  c.  5) :  Quasi  in  longinqua  iste  suspirabal,  et  ipse  Panis 
ante  ilium  discumbebat. 

t  Atrn-i'oi',  which,  as  is  well  known,  originally, — at  least  in  (he  lime  of  Homer, — 
meant  the  morning,  in  opposition  to  the  evening,  meal,  and  as  little  indicates  the  time 
when  the  meal  was  made  as  does  the  Latin  ccena.  Or  even  granting  that  ScTttvou  in 
the  later  Greek  of  the  New  Testament  had  come  to  signify  the  evening  meal,  yet  still 
its  being  the  chief  and  most  important  meal  in  the  day,  was  naturally  what  caused  it 
here  to  be  selected,  and  not  the  accidental  circumstance  of  its  being  celebrated  towards 
evening. 

t  A  sermon  by  Gregory  the  Great  {Horn.  36  in  Evang.)  on  this  parable  begins 
beautifully  thus  :  Hoc  distare  inter  delicias  corporis  et  cordis  solet,  quod  corporales  de- 
liciae  cum  non  habentur,  grave  in  se  desiderium  accenduni ;  cum  vero  habitae  eduntur 
comedentem  protinus  in  fasiidium  vertunt.  At  contr&,  spiritales  delicias,  cum  non 
habentur,  in  fastidio  sunt :  cum  vero  habentur,  in  desiderio  ;  tantoque  k  comedente 
amplius  esuriuntur,  quanto  et  ab  esnriente  amplius  comeduntur.  In  illis  appetitus 
placet,  experientia  displicet ;  in  istis  appetitus  vilis  est,  et  experientia  magis  placet. 

(j  KoXer^,  like  the  Latin  vocare,  is  the  technical  word  for  the  inviting  to  a  festival. 
(Matt.  Mil.  3 ;  John  ii.  2  ;  1  Cor.  x.  27.)     It  is  also  the  word  which  St.  Paul  uses 

19 


282  THE  GREAT  SUPPER. 

many^' — these  were  the  Jews,  and  the  latter  parts  of  the  parable  oblige 
us  to  understand  by  those  bidden,  not  so  much  the  entire  nation,  as  those 
who  mio-ht  be  taken  for  the  peculiar  representatives  of  the  theocracy, 
the  priests  and  the  elders,  the  scribes  and  the  Pharisees,  in  opposition  to 
the  publicans  and  sinners,  and  all  the  despised  portions  of  the  people. 
Those  other  as  claiming  to  be  zealous  for  the  law,  to  be  following  after 
righteousness,  seemed  as  it  were  to  be  pointed  out  as  the  first  who 
should  embrace  the  invitation  of  Christ.  The  maker  of  the  feast  "  sent 
his  servant  at  supper -time,  to  say  to  them  that  were  hidden,  Come,  for  all 
things  are  now  ready."  Some  will  have  that  the  guests,  in  needing  thus 
to  be  reminded  that  the  hour  of  supper  had  arrived,  already  began  to 
show  how  slightly  they  esteemed  the  invitation  ;  but  this  is  a  mistake, 
as  it  has  been  already  observed  that  such  was  the  usual  custom  ;  and 
their  contempt  of  the  honour  done  them,  and  their  neglect  of  their  word 
given, — for  we  must  suppose  they  had  accepted  the  invitation  before, — 
is  first  testified  by  their  excuses  for  not  appearing  at  the  festival. — There 
was,  beyond  doubt,  in  the  world's  history  a  time,  when  more  than  any 
other  it  might  be  said  "  all  things  are  noio  ready,"  a  fulness  of  time,* 
which  when  it  was  arrived,  and  not  till  then,  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
was  set  up,  and  men  invited,  the  Jew  first,  and  afterwards  the  Gentile, 
to  enter  into  it.  The  servant  who  is  sent  to  bid  the  guests  is  not,  as 
Theophylact  assumes,  our  blessed  Saviour  himself,  who  "  took  the  form 
of  a  servant,"  and  might  therefore  be  aptly  represented  under  this  name. 
Nor  yet  can  we  include  under  this  single  servant,  the  prophets  of  the 
old  covenant,  for  it  is  not  till  "  all  things  are  now  ready  "  that  this  ser- 
vant is  sent  forth.  He  represents  then  not  the  heralds  who  went  before 
the  king,  but  those  who  accompanied  him,  preachers,  evangelists,  and 
apostles,  all  who,  reminding  the  Jews  of  the  prophecies  that  went  before 

to  express  the  union  of  an  outward  word  bidding,  and  an  inward  Spirit  drawing, 
whereby  God  seeks  to  bring  men  into  his  kingdom.  The  answering  word  in  St.  John 
is  tXKieiv  (vi.  44  ;  xii.  32).  They  have  both  their  peculiar  fitness,  in  that  both  express 
how  the  power  brought  to  bear  on  man's  will  is  a  moral  power,  and  man  a  moral 
being,  capable,  though  called,  of  not  coming,  if  he  chooses, — of  resisting  the  attrac- 
tion that  would  draw  him,  if  he  will.  This  attraction  or  bidding,  outward  by  the 
Word,  inward  by  the  Spirit,  is  the  KXtjim  ayia,  (2  Tim.  i.  9,)  KXijaij  tov  Qaov,  (Rom.  xi. 
29,)  K\r)aii  tTTovpai/iui,  (Heb.  iii.  1,)  1/  ai/w  xXncrts,  (Phil.  iii.  14,) — which  last  is  not  the 
calling  to  an  height,  but  the  calling  from  an  height ;  not,  as  we  have  it,  "  the  high 
calling,"  but  "  the  calling  from  on  high." 

*  Theophylact  has  here  a  remarkable  comparison  ;  he  has  remarked  the  height  to 
which  the  wickedness  of  the  world  had  reached  at  the  time  of  the  Saviour's  coming, 
and  goes  on  ;  "Q,!nrep  yap  vdani^a  v-rrov\ov  kiX  KOKiriOei  Ibjaiv,  ol  iarpoX  jrujra  rdv  novtjpdv 
vvudv  fKpij^ai,  tifl'  otirtof  ra;  (fiapiiaKeiaf  cirdyovatv,  oSrwj  Koi  [Tho  d/iapnuv  edei  nivra  ra  oiKcXa 
iaurqj  ttiri  cntdci^aaOat,  ttra  tov  jieyav  iarpov  intOuvai  rd  (pdpjiaKOV. 


THE  GREAT  SUPPER.  283 

concerning  the  coming  kingdom  of  God  and  their  share  in  that  king- 
dom,* bade  them  now  enter  on  the  enjoyment  of  those  good  things,  which 
were  no  longer  good  things  in  the  distance,  but  now  actually  present. 

"  And  they  all  toilh  one  consent,"-\  (or,  out  of  one  mind  or  spirit,) 
"  began  to  make  excuse."1(.  Whether  there  is  any  essential  difference 
between  the  excuse  which  the  first  guest  offers,  and  that  offered  by  the 
second,  whether  by  these  are  represented  hindrances  different  in  their 
nature  and  character  which  keep  back  different  men  from  Christ,  or  that 
both  would  alike  teach  us  the  same  general  lesson,  that  the  love  of  the 
world  takes  away  from  men  a  desire  after  and  a  relish  for  heavenly 
things,  it  is  not  easy  to  determine.  I  should  imagine  there  was  a  dif- 
ference, as  I  have  already  incidentally  suggested,  in  speaking  of  the 
cognate  parable  in  St.  Matthew.  Perhaps  ihe  first  who  said,  "  /  have 
bought  a  piece  of  ground,  and  I  must  needs  go  and  see  it,^'  repre- 
sents these  who  are  elate  of  heart  through  acquired  possessions.  He  is 
going  to  see  his  ground,  not  exactly  in  the  spirit  of  Ahab  when  he  visit- 
ed tlie  vineyard  which  he  had  taken  by  violence,  for  there  is  no  guilt 
of  the  sort,  and  it  makes  much  for  the  earnestness  of  the  warning  con- 
veyed in  the  parable,  that  tliere  is  no  such  attributed  to  any  of  the 
guests,  that  none  are  kept  away  by  any  occupation  in  itself  sinful — and 
yet  all  become  sinful,  because  they  are  allowed  to  interfere  with  higher 
objects,  because  the  first  place,  instead  of  a  place  merely  subordinate, 
is  given  to  them.  But  he  is  going  to  see  his  possession  that  he  may 
glory  in  it,  as  Nebuchadnezzar  gloried  when  he  walked  in  his  palace 
and  said,  "  Is  not  this  great  Babylon  that  I  have  built  ...  by  the  might 
of  my  power,  and  for  the  honour  of  my  majesty  ?"  (Dan.  iv.  30.) 
While  in  him  then  it  is  "the  lust  of  the  eye  and  the  pride  of  life" 
which  are  indicated  as  the  things  keeping  him  from  Christ,  with  the 
second  guest  it  is  rather  the  care  and  anxiety  of  business  which  fill 
his  soul  ;  he  has  made  an  important  purchase,  and  cannot  put  off  for  a 
single  day  the   trial  of  how  it  is   likely  to  turnout;*  "  I  have  bought 

*  Augustine  :   Qui  sunt  invitati,  nisi  per  praeniissos  vocati  prophetas? 

t  Vvioixrisy  KopSia;,  or  Some  similar  word,  must  be  supplied  ;  and  such,  as  marking 
the  oneness  of  spirit  out  of  which  all  the  refusals  proceeded,  would,  I  think,  be  better 
than  (jioivfii,  which  some  propose. 

X  JlapaiTcTaOai  is  used  for  recusare  and  excusare  ;  for  the  first.  Acts  xxv.  11  ;  for 
the  second  at  ver.  19  of  this  parable,  where  ^x'^  f^  Traprirriucvov  is  rather  a  Latin  phrase 
(habeas  me  excusatum)  than  a  Greek  one.  'Ettuivciv  Tilf  vX^jao/  would  be  the  more 
classic  phrase  for  declining  an  invitation. 

§  So  Augustine  (Ser7n.  112,  c.  2) :   In  villa  empt^,  dominatio  notatur  ;  ergo  super- 

bia  castigatur, vitium  malum,  vitium  primuni.     His  mystical  explanation  of 

the  things  which  kept  a\i'ay  the  second  guest  is  less  satisfactory,  but  this  is  as  true  as 
beautiful :   Amor  rerum  terrenarum,  viscum  est  spiritalium  pennarum.     Ecce  con- 


284  THE  GREAT  SUPPER. 

jive  *  yoke  of  oxen,  and  I  go  to  prove  them."     He  is  one  who  is  getting 
what  the  other  has  already  got. 

If  in  these  two  it  is  the  pride  and  the  business,  in  the  last  it  is  the 
pleasure,  of  the  world  that  keeps  him  from  Christ.  *'  See  you  not  that 
I  have  a  feast  of  my  own  ?  why  trouble  me  then  with  yours  ?  I  have 
married  a  wife,  and  therefore  I  cannot  coffie."f  The  other  two,  even 
while  they  plead  their  excuses,  are  themselves  conscious  that  they  are 
hardly  valid,  so  that  they  add  out  of  a  sense  of  this  their  insufficiency, 
'•'  I  pray  thee  have  me  excused."  But  this  one  accounts  that  he  has  a  rea- 
son  perfectly  good,  why  he  should  not  attend,  and  troubles  not  himself, 
therefore,  to  make  a  courteous  denial,  but  bluntly  refuses.:}:  As  there 
was  an  ascending  scale  of  contumacy  in  the  bearing  of  the  guests  in  the 
other  parable,  (Matt,  xxii.)  some  making  light  of  the  message,  others 
killing  the  messengers,  so  is  it  here.  It  is  true  that  in  none  does  the 
evil  grow  to  such  an  enormous  height  as  there,  yet  still  is  there  this 
same  ascending  scale.  The  first  would  be  very  glad  to  come,  if  only  it 
were  possible,  if  there  were  not  a  constraining  necessity  keeping  him 
away.  It  is  a  needs  be,  so  at  least  he  describes  it,  so  he  would  have  it 
no  doubt  represented  to  the  maker  of  the  feast.  The  second  alleges  no 
such  constraining  necessity,  but  is  simply  going  upon  sufficient  reason 
in  another  direction  ;  yet  he  too  at  the  same  time  prays  to  be  excused. 
The  third  has  plans  of  his  own,  and  says  outright  "  I  cannot  come." 
According  to  the  Levitical  law,  this  reason  of  his  would  have  been  a 
sufficient  one  why  he  should  not  have  gone  to  the  battle,  (Deut.  xxiv.  5,) 
but  it  is  none  why  he  should  not  come  to  the  feast. § 

In  what  remarkable  connexion  do  the  words,  put  into  the  mouth  of 
the  guests,  stand  with  the  declaration  of  the  Saviour  which  presently  after 

cupisti,  haesisti.  Quia  tibi  dabit  pennas,  ut  columbse,  quando  volabis  ubi  verfe  requies- 
cas,  quando  hie  ubi  malfe  haesisti,  perverse  requiescere  voluisti?  Ci.  Enarr.  in  Ps. 
cxxxviii.  10. 

*  The  number  need  not  perplex  us,  as  Elijah  (1  Kin.  xix.  19)  found  Elisha  plough- 
ing with  twelve  yoke  of  oxen.  As  a  bullock  unaccustomed  to  the  yoke  would  be 
nearly  useless,  the  trial  of  the  oxen  was  very  needful,  and  was  probably  to  find  place 
before  the  purchase  was  finally  concluded. 

t  On  the  same  grounds  Crcesus  would  excuse  his  son  from  the  great  hunting  party 
(Herod.  1.  1,  C.  36)  :   l!it6yaji6i  re  yap  tan,  Kai  Tavra  ol  vvv  fii\ci. 

X  Bengel:  Hie  excusator,  quo  speeiosiorem  et  honestiorem  videtur  habere  causam, 
e6  est  ceteris  importunior. 

§  Gerhard  gives  well  the  three  hindrances  in  three  words,  Dignitates,  opes,  volup- 
tates  ;  and  in  the  old  monkish  rhymes  there  is  evidently  an  interpretation  of  them 
intended,  something  similar  to  that  given  above  : 

Uxor,  villa,  boves,  cocnam  clausere  vocatis  ; 
Mundus,  cura,  caro  cceium  clausere  renatis. 


THE  GREAT  SUPPER.  285 

follows,  *'  If  any  man  come  to  me,  and  hate  not  his  father,  and  mother, 
and  wife,  and  children,  and  brethren,  and  sisters,  yea,  and  his  own  life 
also,  he  cannot  be  my  disciple;"*  and  how  apt  a  commentary  on  the 
parable  is  supplied  by  the  words  of  St.  Paul,  "  This  I  say,  brethren,  the 
time  is  short ;  it  remaineth  that  both  they  that  have  wives  be  as  though 
they  had  none,  and  they  that  weep  as  though  they  wept  not,  and  they 
that  rejoice  as  though  they  rejoiced  not,  and  they  that  buy  as  though  they 
possessed  not,  and  they  that  use  this  world  as  not  abusing  it,"  (1  Cor. 
vii.  29-31,)  since  it  was  not  the  having — for  they  had  nothing  which  it 
was  not  lawful  for  men  to  have — but  the  unduly  loving  these  things, 
which  proved  their  hindrance,  and  ultimately  excluded  them  from  the 
feast. 

The  servant  returns  and  declares  to  his  lord  the  ill  success  which  he 
has  met — how  crZZhave  excused  themselves  from  coming — even  as  hitherto 
it  is  probable  that  in  no  single  instance  had  any  one  of  the  spiritual 
chiefs  of  the  Jewish  nation  attached  himself  openly,  and  without  reserve, 
to  Christ,  so  that  they  could  say,  "  Have  any  of  the  rulers  or  of  the  Phar 
isees  believed  on  him  ?"  (John  vii.  48.)  ^'Then-\  the  master  of  the  housi. 
being  angry,  said  to  his  servant,  Go  out  quickly  into  the  streets  and  lanes 
of  the  city,  and  bring  in  hither  the  poor,  and  the  maimed,  and  the  halt,  and 
the  blind."  In  these  words  there  would  seem  a  distinct  reminiscence  of 
the  precept  which  Christ  just  before  had  given  to  him  at  whose  table  he 
was  sitting ;  "  Call  thou  the  poor,  the  maimed,  the  lame,  the  blind." 
(Ver.  13.)  He  would  encourage  him  to  this  by  showing  him  that  it  is 
even  thus  with  the  great  Giver  of  the  heavenly  feast.  He  calls  the  spi- 
ritually sick,  the  spiritually  needy  ;  while  the  rich  in  their  own  virtues, 
in  their  own  merits,  at  once  exclude  themselves  and  are  excluded  by 
him,  he  calls  these  poor  to  sit  down  at  his  table.  The  people  who  knew 
not  the  law,  and  whom  the  Pharisees  accounted  cursed — the  despised 
and  outcasts  of  the  nation,  the  publicans  and  sinners,  they  should  enter 
into  the  kingdom  of  God,  before  the  great,  the  wise,  the  proud, — before 
those  who  said  they  saw, — before  those  who  thanked  God  they  were  not 
as  other  men, — before  those  who  counted  that  they  had  need  of  nothing. 

Hitherto  the  parable  has  been  historic,  now  it  passes  on  to  be  pro- 
phetic, for  it  declares  how  God  had  a  larger  purpose  of  grace  than  could 
be  satisfied  by  the  coming  in  of  a  part  and  remnant  of  the  Jewish  peo- 
ple,— that  he  had  prepared  a  feast,  at  which  more  shall  sit  down  than 
they, — that  he  has  founded  a  Church,  in  which  there  would  be  room  for 


*  Of  all  the  excuses  made  by  the  invited  guests,  Bengel  well  says :  His  omnibus 
mederi  poterat  sanctum  illud  odium,  ver.  26. 
t  Ambrose  :  Post  divitum  resupina  fastidia. 


286  THE  GREAT  SUPPER. 

Gentile  as  well  as  Jew, — that  those,  too,  should  be  "  fellow-citizens  with 
the  saints,  and  of  the  household  of  God."  It  is  not  that  this  is  explicitly 
declared  in  the  parable,  for  the  time  was  not  yet  for  unfolding  plainly  the 
great  mystery  of  the  calling  of  the  Gentiles  ;  but  it  lay  wrapt  up  there- 
in, and,  like  so  much  else  in  Scripture,  biding  its  time.  The  servant 
returning  from  the  accomplishing  of  his  second  mission  had  said,  "Lord, 
it  is  done  as  thou  hast  commanded,  and  yet  there  is  room, — whereupon, 
since  grace  will  endure  a  vacuum  as  little  as  nature,*  he  receives  a  new 
commission,  "  Go  out  into  the  highways  and  hedges,  and  compel  them  to 
come  in,  that  my  house  may  he  jitled."  If  those  in  the  streets  and  the 
lanes  of  the  city  are  the  more  abject  of  the  Jews,  the  meaner,  the  more 
ignorant,  the  more  sinful,  then  those  without  the  city — which  city  will 
here  be  the  symbol  of  the  theocracy — those  in  the  country  round,  those 
wandering  in  the  highways  and  camping,  as  gypsies  now-a-days,  under 
the  hedges,  will  be  the  yet  more  despised,  and  yet  more  morally  abject 
Gentiles,  ihe  pagans  in  all  senses  of  the  word. 

Concerning  these  the  master  says,  "  Compel  them  to  come  in."  It  is 
strange  how  any  argument  for  a  compulsion,  save  indeed  a  moral  one, 
should  ever  have  been  here  drawn  from  these  words.  In  the  first  place,  in 
the  letter  of  the  parable  to  suppose  any  other  compulsion,  save  that  of 
earnest  persuasion,  is  absurd ;  for  how  can  we  imagine  this  single  ser- 
vant— for  he  is  but  one  throughout — driving  before  him,  and  that  from 
the  country  into  the  city,  a  flock  of  unwilling  guests,  and  these,  too,  ga- 
thered from  those  rude  and  lawless  men  unto  whom  he  is  now  sent.  The 
words  imply,  not  that  the  giver  of  the  feast  assumed  there  would  be,  on 
their  part,  any  reluctance  to  accept  the  invitation  which  should  need  to 
be  overcome,  any  indifference  toward  it,  but  exactly  the  contrary.  It 
was  rather  that  these  houseless  dwellers  in  the  highways,  and  by  the 
hedges,  would  hold  themselves  so  unworthy  of  the  invitation  as  scarcely 
to  believe  it  was  intended  for  them,  scarcely  to  be  induced — without 
earnest  persuasion,  without  the  application  of  something  almost  like 
force — to  enter  the  rich  man's  dwelling,  and  share  in  his  magnificent 
entertainment.  And  when  we  pass  on  to  the  spiritual  thing  signified, 
since  faith  cannot  be  compelled,  what  can  this  compelling  men  to  come 
in  mean,f  save  that  strong,  earnest  exhortation,  which  the  ambassadors 

*  Bengel:  Nee  natura  nee  gratia  patitur  vaeuum. 

t  Even  Maldonatus  explains  it  thus  :  Sinners,  he  says,  are  to  be  adeo  rogandos, 
adeo  invitandos,  ut  quodainmod6  compelli  videantur  ;  and  Bengel  says  excellently  : 
Non  est  omnimoda  eoaetio....  Aliter  compulit  Saulus  pro  Judaisnio  insaniens,  aliter 
Paulus  servus  Jesu  Christi.  See  on  the  other  hand  this  phrase  adduced  and  used  by 
Augustine,  as  justifying  a  certain  degree  of  constraint  for  the  bringing  men  into  the 
outward   unity  of  the  Church,  Ep.  50,  De  moder.  coerc.  Haret.,  and  Serm.  112,  c.  7, 


THE  GREAT  SUPPER.  287 

of  Christ  will  address  to  men,  when  they  are  themselves  deeply  con- 
vinced  of  the  importance  of  the  message  which  they  bear,  and  the  mighty 
issues  which  there  are  for  every  man,  linked  with  his  acceptance  or 
rejection  of  that  message  of  the  Gospel  ?  If  they  "  compel,"  it  will  be  as 
did  the  angels,  who,  when  Lot  lingered,  laid  hold  upon  his  hand  and 
brought  him  forth,  and  set  him  without  the  city  of  destruction;  (Gen. 
xix.  16  ;)  or  the  ambassadors  of  Christ  will,  in  another  way,  compel  men 
to  come  in,  for  they  will  speak  as  delivering  the  words  of  him  who  has  a 
right  to  be  heard  by  his  creatures, — who  not  merely  entreats,  but  com- 
mands, all  men,  everywhere,  to  repent  and  believe  the  Gospel.  Anselm 
observes,  that  God  may  be  also  said  to  compel  men  to  come  in,  when  he 
drives  them  by  strong  calamities  to  seek  and  find  refuge  with  him  and  in 
his  Church  ;*  or  as  Luther  explains  it,  they  are  compelled  to  come  in 
when  the  law  is  broadly  preached,  terrifying  their  consciences,  and 
driving  them  to  Christ,  as  their  only  refuge  and  hope. 

The  parable  closes  with  the  householder's  indignant  declaration, 
"  For  I  say  unto  ?/OM,f  that  none  of  those  7nenj^  that  icere  hidden  shall  taste 
of  my  supper."  Final  exclusion  from  the  feast,  to  which,  when  they 
saw  others  partaking,  they  might  wish  to  regain  admission  on  the  plea  of 
their  former  invitation, — this  is  the  penally  with  which  he  threatens 
them  ; — he  declares  they  have  forfeited  their  share  in  it,  and  for  ever ; 
that  no  after  eai"nestness  in  claiming  admission  shall  profit  them  now. 
(Prov.  i.  28 ;  Matt.  xxv.  11,  12.) 

It  is  worth  while  to  compare  this  parable  and  that  of  the  Marriage  of 
the  King's  Son,  for  the  purpose  of  observing  with  how  fine  a  skill  all  the 
minor  circumstances  are  arranged  in  each,  to  be  in  perfectly  consistent 
keeping.  The  master  of  the  house  here  does  not  assume,  as  he  does  not 
possess,  power  to  avenge  the  insult ;  even  as  the  offence  committed  is 
both  much  lighter  in  itself,  and  lighter  in  the  person  against  whom  it  is 

where  he  says,  Foris  inveniatur  necessitas,  nascitur  intus  voluntas  ;  and  conipare  De 
Unit.  Ecclcs.,  c.  20,  and  Bernard,  De  Grat.  et  Lib.  Arb.,  c.  11. 

*  So,  too,  Gregory  the  Great  {Horn.  36  in  Evang  )  :  Qui  ergo  hujus  raundi  adver- 
sitatibus  fracti  ad  Dei  amorem  redeunt,  compelluntur  ut  intrent. 

t  The  plural  vjun  is  perplexing,  only  one  servant  having  been  named  throughout. 
Is  it  that  that  one  is  considered  as  the  representative  of  many  ?  or  that  this  declaration 
is  made  in  the  presence  of  the  whole  household  ?  or,  as  Bengel  explains  it,  of  such 
guests  as  were  already  by  the  first  vocation  assembled  1  Flurale  pertinet  ad  introductos 
pauperes.  It  cannot  be  that  Christ  is  now  speaking  in  his  own  person  to  the  Pharisees 
round  him,  for  the  words  must  plainly  be  regarded  not  as  his  words,  but  as  the  con- 
clusion of  the  parable,  and  spoken  by  the  householder. 

X  It  is  worth  while  observing  that  it  is  avipwv  not  dv6pJ:>iToyv  here,  which  of  itself 
brings  this  verse  into  interesting  relation,  as  indeed  the  whole  parable  suggests  the 
parallel,  with  1  Cor.  i.  26-29. 


288  THE  LOST  SHEEP. 

committed,  than  the  offence  which  is  so  severely  punished  in  the  paral- 
lel narration.  There  the  principal  person,  being  a  king,  has  armies  at 
his  command,  as  he  has  also  whole  bands  of  servants,  and  not  merely  a 
single  one,  to  send  forth  with  his  commands.  The  refusal  to  accept  his 
invitation,  was,  in  fact,  according  to  Eastern  notions  of  submission,  no- 
thing less  than  rebellion,  and  being  accompanied  with  outrages  done  to 
his  servants,  called  out  that  terrible  retribution.  Here,  as  the  offence  is 
in  every  way  lighter,  so  also  is  the  penalty, — that  is,  in  the  outward  cir- 
cumstance  which  supplies  the  groundwork  of  the  parable,  since  it  is 
merely  exclusion  from  a  festival ;  though  we  should  remember  it  is  not 
lighter,  when  taken  in  its  spiritual  signification;  for  it  is  nothing  less 
than  exclusion  from  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  from  all  the  blessings  of 
the  communion  of  Christ,  and  that  exclusion  implies  "  everlasting  de- 
struction from  the  presence  of  the  Lord  and  the  glory  of  his  power." 


PARABLE  XXII. 


THE    LOST    SHEEP. 

Matthew  xviii.  12-14  ;  Luke  xv.  3-7. 

When  St.  Luke  says,  "  Then  drew  near  to  the  Lord  all  the  publicans 
and  sinners  for  to  hear  him,"  this  does  not  imply  that  all  who  were  at 
some  particular  moment  in  a  certain  neighbourhood  drew  near  with  this 
purpose  ;  but  the  Evangelist  is  rather  giving  the  prevailing  feature  in 
the  whole  of  Christ's  ministry,  or  at  least  in  one  epoch  of  it — that  it  was 
such  a  ministry  as  to  draw  all  the  outcasts  of  the  nation,  the  rejected  of 
the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  round  him — that  there  was  a  secret  attraction 
in  his  person,  in  his  Word,  which  drew  all  of  them  habitually  to  him  for 
to  hear  him.*  Of  these  "  publicans  and  sinners  "  the  first  were  men  in- 
famous among  their  countrymen  by  their  very  occupation"}" — the  second, 

*  We  find  this  indicated  in  the  words,  naav  iyyiCovm,  which  here  find  place,  in- 
stead of  the  simpler  imperfect :  They  were  in  the  habit  of  drawing  nigh.  Grotius 
rightly :  Actum  continuum  et  quotidianum  genus  hoc  loquendi  significat.  And  he 
compares  Luke  iv.  .31 ;   to  which  he  might  hnve  added  Mark  ii.  18,  and  other  examples- 

+  TtAtji'ut  ((iiro  Tov  TcXoi  wvctaOai)  Were  of  two  kinds.  The  publicani,  so  called 
while  they  were  gatherers  of  the  publicum,  or  state  revenue  ;  these  were  commonly 
Roman  knights,  who  farmed  the  taxes  in  companies,  and  this  occupation  was  not  in 
disesleem,  but  the  contrary.     Besides  these  were  the  portitores,  or  exactores,  who  are 


THE  LOST  SHEEP.  289 

such  as  till  awakened  by  him  to  repentance  and  a  sense  of  their  past 
sins,  had  been  notorious  transgressors  of  God's  holy  law.  He  did  not  re- 
pel them,  nor  seem  to  fear,  as  the  Pharisees  would  have  done,  pollution 
from  their  touch ;  but  being  come  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  was 
lost,  received  them  graciously,  instructed  them  further  in  his  doctrine, 
and  lived  in  familiar  intercourse  with  them.  At  this  the  Scribes  and 
Pharisees  murmured  and  took  offence* — seeming  as  it  did  to  them  con- 
duct unbecoming  a  teacher  of  righteousness.  They  could  more  easily 
have  understood  a  John  Baptist,  flying  to  the  wilderness,  so  to  avoid  the 
contamination  of  sinners,  separating  himself  from  them  outwardly  in  the 
whole  manner  of  his  life,  as  well  as  inwardly  in  his  spirit.  And  this 
outward  separation  from  sinners,  which  was  the  Old  Testament  form  of 
righteousness,  might  have  been  needful  for  those  who  would  preserve 
their  purity  in  those  times  of  the  law  and  till  the  Lord  came, — till  he,  first 
in  his  own  person,  and  then  through  his  Church,  brought  a  far  mightier 
power  of  good  to  bear  upon  the  evil  of  the  world,  than  ever  had  been 

here  meant  by  rc^Covai,  men  of  an  inferior  sort,  freedmen,  provincials,  and  the  like,  who 
did  the  lower  work  of  the  collection,  and  probably  greatly  abused  the  power  which  of 
necessity  was  left  in  their  hands.  They  were  commonly  stationed  at  frontiers,  at 
gates  of  cities,  on  rivers,  at  havens,  (vendentium  ipsius  coeli  et  terrse  et  maris  transitus  ; 
Tertullian,)  for  the  purpose  of  collecting  customs  on  the  wares  which  were  brought 
into  the  country.  They  were  sufficiently  hateful  among  the  Greeks  on  account  of 
their  rudeness,  their  frauds,  their  vexations  and  oppressions;  as  they  are  here  classed 
with  ajjaprcoXoi,  SO  by  them  wiih^ioi^^oi  and  irnpvofioaKni,  and  whole  lists  are  given  of  the 
opprobrious  epithets  with  which  they  were  assailed.  Cicero  {In  Vatin.  5)  gives  a 
lively  picture  of  their  doings,  telling  Vatinius  he  must  have  thought  himself  one  of 
these  publicans,  ciim  omnium  domos,  apothecas,  naves,  furacissime  scrutarere,  homi- 
nesque  negotia  gerentes  judiciis  iniquissimis  irretires,  mercatores  e  navi  egredientes 
terreres,  conscendentes  morarere.  Chrysostom  {De  Paenit.,  Horn.  ii.  4)  would  seem 
to  say  that   the  business  itself  from  its  very  nature,  apart  from  the  frauds  to  which  it 

too  often  led,  was    unrighteous:    OiSiv  aXXo    iari    reXtivrj;   ft    TTtira^firiaiatTjiivri   pia,    li/vonog 

aftapria,  tiirpoaoiiroi  n\eove^ia.  But  the  Jewish  publicans  were  further  hateful  to  their 
countrymen,  being  accounted  traitors  to  the  cause  of  the  nation  and  of  God,  who  for 
the  sake  of  filthy  lucre  had  sided  with  the  Romans,  the  enemies  and  oppressors  of  the 
theocracy,  and  now  collected  for  an  heathen  treasury  that  tribute,  the  payment  of 
which  was  the  evident  sign  of  the  subjection  of  the  people  of  God  to  a  foreign  yoke. 
Of  the  abhorrence  in  which  they  were  held  there  is  abundant  testimony  ;  no  alms 
might  be  received  from  their  money-chest,  nay  it  was  not  even  lawful  to  change 
money  there  ;  their  evidence  was  not  received  in  courts  of  justice  ;  they  were  put  on 
the  same  level  with  heathens,  (to  keep  which  in  mind,  adds  an  emphasis  to  Luke  xix. 
9,)  and  no  doubt,  as  renegades  and  traitors,  were  far  more  abhorred  even  than  the 
heathen  themselves.  (See  the  Diet,  of  Gr.  and  Rom.  Antt.,  s.  v.  Publicani,  p.  806, 
and  Deyling's  Obss.  Sac,  v.  1,  p.  206.) 

*  Gregory  the  Great  {Horn.  34  in  Evang.)  :  Arenti  corde  ipsum  Fontem  miseri- 
cordisB  reprehendebant. 


290  THE  LOST  SHEEP. 

brought  before.  It  had  hitherto  been  prudent  for  those  who  felt  them- 
selves predisposed  to  the  infection  to  flee  from  the  infected,  but  he  was 
the  phj'sician  who  rather  came  boldly  to  seek  out  the  infected,  that  he 
might  heal  them  ;  and  furnishing  his  servants  with  divine  antidotes 
against  the  world's  sickness,  sent  them  also  boldly  to  encounter  and  over- 
come it.  This  was  what  the  Pharisees  and  scribes  could  not  understand  ; 
it  seemed  to  them  impossible  that  any  one  should  walk  pure  and  unspot- 
ted amid  the  pollutions  of  the  world,  seeking  and  not  shunning  sinners. 
They  had  neither  love  to  hope  the  recovery  of  such,  nor  medicines  to 
effect  that  recovery. 

As  another  expression  of  their  discontent  (Luke  v.  30)  had  called 
out  those  blessed  words,  "  Those  that  are  whole  need  not  a  physician, 
but  they  that  are  sick  ;  I  came  not  to  call  the  righteous,  but  sinners  to 
repentance  ;"  so  their  later  murmurings  were  the  occasion  of  the  three 
parables  which  here  follow  one  another,  in  the  which  he  seeks  to  shame 
the  murmurers  out  of  their  murmurs,  showing  them  how  little  sympathy 
those  murmurs  found  in  that  higher  heavenly  world  from  whence  he 
came.  He  holds  up  to  them  God  and  the  angels  of  God  rejoicing  at  the 
conversion  of  a  sinner,  and  silently  contrasts  this,  the  liberal  joy  and 
exultation  of  heaven,  with  the  narrow  discontent  and  envious  repinings 
that  found  place  in  their  hearts.  The  holy  inhabitants  of  heaven  did 
not  count  scorn  of  the  repentant  sinner,  but  welcomed  him  into  their 
fellowship  with  gladness.  Would  they  dare,  in  the  pride  of  their  legal 
righteousness,  and  of  their  exemption  from  some  gross  offences  whereof 
he  had  been  guilty,  refuse  to  receive  him,  keeping  him  at  a  distance,  as 
though  his  very  touch  would  defile  them  ? 

Nor  is  it  merely  that  there  is  joy  in  heaven  over  the  penitent  sinner, 
but  the  Lord  warns  them,  if  they  indulge  in  this  pride, — if  they  shut 
themselves  up  in  this  narrow  form  of  legal  righteousness, — there  will 
be  more  joy  in  heaven  over  one  of  these  penitents  whom  they  so  much 
despised,  than  over  ninety-nine  of  such  as  themselves.  He  does  not 
deny  the  good  that  might  be  in  them ;  many  of  them,  no  doubt,  had  a 
zeal  for  God, — were  following  after  righteousness  such  as  they  knew  it, 
a  righteousness  according  to  the  law.  But  if  now  that  an  higher  right- 
eousness  was  brought  into  the  world, — a  righteousness  by  faith,  the  new 
life  of  the  Gospel, — they  obstinately  refused  to  become  partakers  of  this 
new  life,  preferring  to  serve  in  the  oldness  of  the  letter  instead  of  the 
newness  of  the  Spirit,  then  such  as  would  receive  this  life  from  him, 
though  having,  in  times  past,  departed  infinitely  wider  from  God  than 
they  had  ever  done,  ety  would  now  be  brought  infinitely  nearer  to  him, 
as  the  one  sheep  was  brought  home  to  ike  house,  while  the  ninety  and 
nine  abode  in  the   wilderness, — as   for  the  prodigal  a  fatted  calf  was 


THE  LOST  SHEEP.  291 

slain,  while  the  elder  brother  received  not  so  much  as  a  kid.  Nay,  in 
the  last  parable  they  are  bidden  to  beware  lest  the  spirit  they  are  now 
indulging  in,  if  allowed  further,  do  not  shut  them  out  altogether,  or  ra- 
ther, lest  they  do  not  through  it  exclude  themselves  altogether,  from  that 
new  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  peace  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost, 
which  ihe  Lord  was  establishing  upon  earth,  and  into  which  they,  as 
well  as  the  publicans  and  sinners,  were  invited  freely  to  enter. 

Of  the  three  parables,  the  two  first,  those  of  the  Lost  Sheep  and  the 
Lost  Piece  of  Money,  set  forth  to  us  mainly  the  seeking  love  of  God ; 
while  the  third,  that  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  describes  to  us  rather  the  rise 
and  growth  responsive  to  that  love  of  repentance  in  the  heart  of  man. 
It  is,  in  fact,  only  the  same  truth  presented  successively  under  different 
aspects,  God's  seeking  love  being  set  forth  first,  and  this  not  without 
reason,  since  we  thus  are  taught  that  all  first  motions  towards  good  are 
from  him,  that  grace  must  prevent  as  well  as  follow  us.  But  yet  is  it 
the  same  truth  in  all ;  for  it  is  the  confluence  of  this  drawing  and  seek- 
ing love  from  without,  and  of  the  faith  awakened  by  the  same  power 
from  within, — the  confluence  of  these  two  streams,  the  objective  grace 
and  the  subjective  faith, — out  of  which  repentance  springs.  The  para- 
bles in  this  chapter  would  have  seemed  incomplete  without  one  another, 
but  together  form  a  perfect  and  harmonious  whole.  Separately  they 
would  have  seemed  incomplete,  for  the  two  first  speak  nothing  of  a 
changed  heart  and  mind  toward  God  ;  nor,  indeed,  would  the  images  of 
a  sheep  and  piece  of  money  have  conveniently  allowed  this ;  while  the 
last  speaks  only  of  this  change,  and  nothing  of  that  which  must  have 
caused  it,  the  antecedent  working  of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  the  heart,  the 
going  forth  of  his  power  and  love,  which  must  have  found  the  wanderer, 
before  he  could  ever  have  found  himself,  or  found  his  God.  We  may 
thus  contemplate  these  parables  under  the  aspect  of  a  trilogy,  which  yet 
again  is  to  be  divided  into  two  unequal  portions  of  two  and  one — St. 
Luke  himself  distinctly  marking  the  break  and  the  new  beginning 
which  finds  place  after  the  two  first. 

But  there  are  also  many  other  inner  harmonies  and  relations  be- 
tween them  which  are  interesting  to  observe  and  trace.  Thus  there  is 
a  seeming  anti-climax  in  the  numbers  named  in  the  successive  parables, 
which  is  in  reality  a  climax, — one  in  an  hundred* — one  in  ten, — one  in 
two ;  the  feeling  of  the  valu§  of  the  part  lost  would  naturallj'  increase 

*  This  was  a  familiar  way  of  numbering  and  dividing  among  the  Jews,  of  which 
examples  are  given  by  Lightfoot  here.  There  is  also  a  striking  saying  attributed  to 
Mahomet,  in  which  the  same  appears, — The  Lord  God  has  divided  mercy  and  pity 
into  an  hundred  parts  ;  of  these,  he  has  retained  ninety  and  nine  for  himself,  and  sent 
one  upon  earth.     (Von  Hammer's  Fundgruben  d.  Orients,  v.  1,  p.  308.) 


292  THE  LOST  SHEEP. 

with  the  proportion  which  it  bore  to  the  whole.  And  other  human  feel- 
ings and  interests  are  implied  in  the  successive  narratives,  which  would 
have  helped  to  enhance  in  each  successive  case  the  anxiety  for  the  re- 
covery of  what  was  lost.  The  possessor  of  an  hundred  sheep  must  have 
been  in  some  sort  a  rich  man,  therefore  not  likely  to  feel  the  loss  of  a 
single  one  out  of  his  flock,  so  deeply  as  the  woman  who,  having  but  ten 
small  pieces  of  money,  should  of  these  lose  one  :  again  the  intensity  of 
her  feeling  would  come  infinitely  short  of  the  parental  affection  of  a 
father,  who,  having  but  two  sons,  should  behold  one  out  of  these  two 
go  astray.  Thus  we  find  ourselves  moving  in  ever  narrower  and  so 
ever  intenser  circles  of  hope  and  fear  and  love — drawing  in  each  suc- 
cessive parable  nearer  to  the  innermost  centre  and  heart  of  the  truth. 

In  each  case  too  we  may  see  shadowed  forth  a  greater  guilt  and 
therefore  a  greater  grace.  In  the  first  parable  the  guilt  is  the  smallest. 
The  sinner  is  set  forth  under  the  image  of  a  silly  wandering  sheep. 
Though  this  is  but  one  side  of  the  truth,  yet  is  it  a  most  real  one,  that 
sin  is  oftentimes  an  ignorance :  the  sinner  knows  not  what  he  does,  and 
if  in  one  aspect  he  deserves  wrath,  in  another  claims  pity  :  he  is  a  sheep 
that  has  gone  astray,  ere  it  knew  what  it  was  doing,  ere  it  had  even 
learned  that  it  had  a  shepherd,  that  it  belonged  to  a  fold.  So  is  it  with 
a  multitude  of  wanderers,  in  whom  all  this  knowledge  was  yet  latent, 
and  who  went  astray  before  ever  it  was  effectually  called  out.  But  there 
are  others,  set  forth  under  the  lost  money,  who  having  known  them- 
selves to  be  God's,  to  be  stamped  with  his  image,  the  image  of  the  Great 
King,  on  their  souls,  do  yet  throw  themselves  away,  renounce  their  high 
birth,  and  wilfully  lose  themselves  in  the  world.  Their  sin  is  greater? 
but  there  is  a  sin  yet  greater  than  theirs  behind — the  sin  of  the  prodigal 
— to  have  known  something  of  the  love  of  God — to  have  known  some- 
thing of  him,  not  as  our  King  who  has  stamped  us  with  his  image,  but 
as  our  Father  in  whose  house  we  are,  and  yet  to  have  slighted  that 
love,  and  forsaken  that  house — this  is  the  crowning  guilt ;  and  yet  the 
grace  of  God  is  sufficient  to  forgive  even  this  sin,*  and  to  bring  back 
such  a  wanderer  even  as  this  to  himself. 

The  first  parable  of  the  series  had  a  peculiar  fitness  addressed  to  the 
spiritual  rulers  of  the  Jewish  people.  They  too  were  shepherds — con- 
tinually charged,  rebuked,  warned,  under^this  very  title,  (Ezek.  xxxiv.  ; 
Zech.  xi.  16,)  under-shepherds  of  him  who  set  forth  his  own  watchful 
tenderness  for  his  people  under  the  same  image;  (Isai.  xl.  11  ;  Jer. 
xxxi.  10;  Ezek.  xxxiv.  12;  xxxvii.  24;  Zech.  xiii.  7;  cf.  Ps.  xxiii. 


*  Bengel :  Ovie,  drachma,  filius  pcrditus  :    peccator  stupidus,  sui   plane  nesciu?, 
sciens  et  voluntarius. 


THE  LOST  SHEEP.  293 

1 ;  Ixxx.  1 ;) — yet  now  were  they  finding  fault  with  Christ  for  doing 
that  very  thing  which  they  ought,  and  which  the  name  they  bore  should 
have  reminded  them  they  ought,  to  have  done.  Not  only  were  they 
themselves  no  seekers  of  the  lost,*  no  bringers  back  of  the  strayed,  but 
they  murmured  against  him,  the  Shepherd  of  Israel,  the  great  Shepherd 
of  the  sheep,  because  he  came  doing  in  his  own  person,  what  they  his 
deputies  so  long  had  neglected  to  do,  because  he  came  to  make  good 
what  they  had  marred. 

In  the  common  things  of  our  daily  experience,  a  sheep  which  could 
wander  away  from,  could  also  wander  back  to,  the  fold.  But  it  is  not 
so  with  a  sheep  of  God's  pasture :  this  could  lose,  but  it  could  not  find 
itself  again  ;  there  is  in  sin  a  centrifugal  tendency,  and  of  necessity  the 
wanderings  of  this  sheep  could  only  be  further  and  further  away. 
Therefore,  if  it  shall  be  found  at  all,  this  can  only  be  by  its  Shepherd 
going  to  seek  it ;  without  this,  being  once  lost,  it  must  be  lost  for  ever.f 
It  might  at  first  sight  appear  as  though  the  Shepherd  were  caring  for  the 
one  strayed,  at  the  expense  and  risk  of  all  the  others,  leaving  as  he  does 
the  other  ^^  ninety  and  nine  in  the  wilderness."  But  it  need  hardly  be 
observed,  that  we  are  not  to  understand  of  "  the  wilderness,"  as  of  a 
sandy  or  rocky  desert,  without  herbage, — the  haunt  of  wild  beasts  or  of 
wandering  robber  hordes, — but  rather  as  wide-extended  grassy  plains, 
steppes  or  savannahs,  called  desert  because  without  habitations  of  men, 
but  exactly  the  fittest  place  for  the  pasture  of  sheep.  Thus  we  read  in 
St.  John  (vi.  10)  that  there  was  much  grass  in  a  place  which  another 
Evangelist  calls  a  desert,  and  no  doubt  we  commonly  attach  to  "  desert  " 
or  "  wilderness,"  in  Scripture,  images  of  far  more  uniform  barrenness  and 
desolation  and  dreariness  than  the  reality  would  warrant.  Parts,  it  is  true, 
of  any  of  the  large  deserts  of  Palestine  or  Arabia,  are  as  dreary  and 
desolate  as  can  be  imagined,  though  quite  as  much  from  rock  as  from 
sandy  levels — yet  we  learn  from  travellers,  that  on  the  whole  there  is  in 

*  One   of  the  charges  against  the  false  shepherds,  Ezek.  xxxiv.  4,  is  just  this,  t6 

t  Augustine  presses  this  point,  observing  how,  though  nothing  is  said  of  the  father 
either  sending  by  the  hand  of  another  or  himself  looking  for  the  prodigal  son,  yet  we 
are  not  therefore  to  see  in  his  return,  in  his  "  I  will  arise,"  an  independent  resolution 
of  the  sinner's  own,  but  rather  to  complete  that  parable  from  this,  (Enarr.  in  Ps.  Ixxvii. 
19)  :  Redit  ovis  perdita,  non  tamen  in  viribus  suis,  sed  in  humeris  reportata  pastoris, 
quae  se  perdere  potuit,  dum  sponte  vagaretur,  se  autem  invenire  non  potuit,  nee  omnio 
inveniretur,  nisi  pastoris  misericordia  iqusereretur.  Non  enim  et  ille  filius  ad  banc 
ovem  non  pertinet,  qui  reversus  in  semetipsum  dixit,  Surgam  et  ibo  ad  patrem  meum. 
Occulta  itaque  vocatione  et  inspiratione  etiam  ipse  qusesitus  est  et  resuscitatus,  non- 
nisi  ab  illo  qui  vivificat  omnia:  et  inventus,  a  quo,  nisi  ab  illo  qui  perrexit  salvare  et 
qusrere  quod  perierat  1 


294  THE  LOST  SHEEP. 

those  deserts,  or  wildernesses,  much  greater  variety  of  scenery,  much 
more  to  refresh  the  eye,  much  larger  extents  of  fertile  or  at  least  grassy 
land,  than  is  commonly  supposed  ;*  so  that  the  residue  of  the  flock  are 
left  here  in  their  ordinary  pasturage,  while  the  shepherd  goes  after  that 
one  which  is  lost  till  he  finds  it. 

Christ's  Incarnation  was  a  girding  of  himself  to  go  after  his  lost 
sheep.  His  whole  life  upon  earth,  his  entire  walk  in  the  flesh,  was  a 
following  of  the  strayed  one  ;  for  in  his  own  words  he  was  come,  this  was 
the  very  purpose  of  his  coming,  namely,  "  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which 
was  lost."  And  he  sought  his  own  till  he  found  it.  He  was  not  weary 
with  the  greatness  of  the  way  ;  he  shrank  not  when  the  thorns  wounded 
his  flesh,  and  tore  his  feet.  He  followed  us  into  the  deep  of  our  misery, 
came  under  the  extremity  of  our  malediction.  For  he  had  gone  forth  to 
seek  his  own  till  he  had  found  it,  and  would  not  pause  till  then.  And 
having  found,  how  tenderly  the  shepherd  handles  that  sheep  which  has 
cost  him  all  this  labor  and  fatigue  :  he  does  not  punish  it;  he  does  not 
smite,  nor  even  harshly  drive  it  back  to  the  fold  :  nay,  he  does  not  deli- 
ver it  to  a  servant,  but  he  lays  it  upon  his  ownf  shoulders,  and  himself 
carefully  carries  it,  till  he  brings  it  to  the  fold.  In  this  last  circumstance 
we  recognize  an  image  of  the  sustaining  i^nd  supporting  grace  of  Christ, 
which  does  not  cease  till  his  rescued  are  made  partakers  of  final  salva- 
tion. But  when  some  press  and  make  much  of  the  weariness  which  this 
load  must  have  caused  to  the  shepherd,  seeing  here  an  allusion  to  his 
sufferings,  "  who  bare  our  sins  in  his  own  body,":}:  upon  whom  were  laid 


*  This  is  the  admirable  description  of  a  late  traveller  in  the  East ;  "  Stern  and 
monotonous  as  may  be  called  the  general  features  of  a  desert,  let  not  the  reader  sup- 
pose it  is  all  barren.  There  are  indeed  some  accursed  patches,  where  scores  of  miles 
lie  before  you,  like  a  tawny  Atlantic,  one  yellow  wave  rising  before  another.  But  far 
from  unfrequenlly  there  are  regions  of  wild  fertility,  where  the  earth  shoots  forth  a  jun- 
gle of  aromatic  shrubs,  and  most  delicious  are  the  sensations  conveyed  to  the  parched 
European,  as  the  camel  treads  down  the  underwood  with  his  broad  foot,  and  scatters 
to  the  winds  the  exhalations  of  a  thousand  herbs.  There  are  other  districts,  where 
the  hard  and  compact  gravel  would  do  honour  to  a  lady's  shrubbery :  in  these  regions 
you  meet  with  dwarf  trees,  and  long  ridges  of  low  bare  rocks,  of  fantastic  configura- 
tion, along  whose  base  you  find  the  yellow  partridge  and  the  black-eyed  gazelle." 

+   'Er-i   rotij  Mjiovi  l  av  T  ov. 

t  Cajclan:  Impositio  ovis  in  humeros  redemptio  est  humani  generis  in  proprio 
corpore,  et  hoc  quia  sponte  fecit,  ideo  gaudens  describitur.  Melancthon  :  Est  in  tex- 
tu  suavis  significatio  inserta  passionis  Christi :  ovem  inventam  ponit  in  humeros  sues, 
t.  e.  ipse  onus  nostrum  transfer!  in  se  ipsum.  The  lines  of  Prudentius  {Hymn,  post 
Jejun.,)  have  much  beauty  : — 

lUe  ovem  morbo  residem  gregique 
Perditam  sano,mal6  dissipantem 


THE  LOST  SHEEP.  295 

the  iniquities  of  us  all,  this  seems  to  me  a  missing  here  of  the  true  signifi- 
cance. For  rather  the  words  "  till  he  find  it,"  I  should  take  as  having 
told  the  whole  story  of  the  painfulness  of  his  way,  who  came  in  search  of 
his  lost  creature,  a  way  which  led  him,  as  he  would  not  cease  till  he 
found  his  own,  to  the  cross  and  to  the  grave  ;  and  this  is  now  rather  the 
story  of  his  triumphant  return  *  to  heaven  with  the  trophies  that  he  had 
won,  the  spoil  that  he  had  delivered  from  the  lion's  jaws. 

And  as  the  man  reaching  home  summons  friends  and  neighbours  to 
be  sharers  in  his  f  joy,  as  they  had  been  sharers  in  his  anxiety,  for  he 
speaks  of  the  sheep  as  one  with  the  loss  of  which  they  were  acquainted 
and  had  sympathized,  so  Christ  declares  that  there  shall  be  joy  in  heaven 
on  the  occasion  of  one  sinner  repenting,  one  wandering  sheep  of  the  hea- 
venly fold  brought  back  to  it  again — that  heaven  and  earth  form  but  one 
kingdom,  being  bound  together  by  that  love  which  is  "  the  bond  of  per- 
fectness."  He  keeps  indeed  back,  as  far  as  any  distinct  declaration  in 
words  goes,  who  the  bringer  back  is,  but  since  he  is  justifying  l^is  own 
conduct  in  inviting  sinners  to  repentance,  lets  it  sufficiently  plainly  ap- 
pear who  it  is,  that  it  is  even  himself,  who  returning  to  the  heavenly 
places  shall  cause  jubilee  there.  For  we  must  observe,  that  he  speaks 
of  this  joy  as  future,  as  one  hereafter  to  be — not  as  yet  does  he  contem- 
plate the  occasion  of  this  joy  as  having  been  given,  since  not  as  yet  has 
he  returned  to  his  house,  not  as  yet  risen  and  ascended,  leading  captivity 
captive,  and  bringing  with  him  his  rescued  and  redeemed.     Nor  should 

Vellus  affixis  vepribus  per  hirtae 

Devia  silvse 
Impiger  pastor  revocat,  lupisque 
Gestat  exclusis,  humeros  gravatus  ; 
Inde  purgatain  revehens  aprico 

Reddit  ovili, 
Reddit  et  pratis  viridique  carapo, 
Vibrat  impexis  ubi  nulla  lappis 
Spina,  nee  germen  sudibus  perarmat 

Carduus  horrens: 
Sed  frequens  palniis  nemus,  et  reflexa 
Vernat  herbarum  coma,  turn  perennis 
Gurgitern  vivis  vitreurn  fluentis 
Laurus  obumbrat. 
*  Gregory  the  Great  (Horn.  34  in  Evang.) :  Inventa  ove  ad  domum  redit,  quia 
Pastor  noster  reparato  homine  ad   regnum   coelesle  rediit.     Bengal :  Jesus  Christus 
plane  in  ascensione  domum  rediit ;  coelum  ejus  domus  est  ;  Joh.  xiv.  2. 

t  Gregory  the  Great  (Ho7n.  34  in  Evang.)  on  this  "  Eejoice  with  me"  has  a  strik- 
ing remark  :  Non  dicit,  Congratulamini  inventaa  ovi,  sed  niihi  ;  quia  videlicit  ejus 
gaudium  est  vita  nostra,  et  ciim  nos  ad  caelum  reducimur,  solemnitatem  Izetitiae  ejus 
implemus. 


296  '  THE  LOST  SHEEP. 

we  miss  the  slight  yet  majestic  intimation  of  the  dignity  of  his  person 
which  he  gives  in  that  '■'■I say  unto  you" — T  who  know,  I  who,  when  I 
tell  you  of  heavenly  things,  tell  you  of  mine  own,  of  things  which  I  have 
seen,  (John  iii.  11) — I  say  to  you  that  this  joy  shall  be  in  heaven  on  the 
recovery  of  the  lost. 

Were  this  all  that  Christ  had  declared,  there  would  be  nothing  to 
perplex  us ;  but  he  declares  further,  that  there  is  not  merely  joy  over 
one  penitent,  but  more  joy  over  him  "  tha7i  over  ninety  arid  nine  just  per- 
sons which  need  no  repentance."  Now  we  can  easily  understand,  how, 
among  men,  there  should  be  more  joy  for  a  small  portion  which  has  been 
endangered,  than  for  the  continued  secure  possession  of  a  much  larger 
portion :  we  might  say  with  Luther,  it  is  the  mother,  concentrating  for 
the  moment  all  her  affection  on  her  sick  child,  and  seeming  to  a  by-stand- 
er  to  love  none  but  that  only,  and  rejoicing  at  that  one  child's  recovery 
more  than  at  the  uninterrupted  health  of  all  the  others.  Or  to  use  Au- 
gustine's beautiful  words,*  "  What  then  takes  place  in  the  soul,  when  it 
is  more  delighted  at  finding  or  recovering  the  things  it  loves,  than  if  it 
had  ever  had  them  ?  Yea,  and  other  things  witness  hereunto,  and  all 
things  are  full  of  witnesses,  crying  out,  'So  it  is.'  The  conquering 
commander  triumpheth  ;  yet  had  he  not  conquered,  unless  he  had  fought, 
and  the  more  peril  there  was  in  the  battle,  so  much  the  more  joy  is  there 
in  the  triumph.  The  storm  tosses  the  sailors,  threatens  shipwreck  ;  all 
wax  pale  at  approaching  death  ;  sky  and  sea  are  calmed,  and  they  are 
exceeding  joyed,  as  having  been  exceeding  afraid.  A  friend  is  sick,  and 
his  pulse  threatens  danger  ;  all  who  long  for  his  recovery  are  sick  in 
mind  with  him.  He  is  restored,  though  as  yet  he  walks  not  with  his 
former  strength,  yet  there  is  such  joy  as  was  not  when  before  he  walked 
sound  and  strong. "f  Yet  whence  arises  the  disproportionate  joy  ?  clear- 
ly from  the  unexpectedness  of  the  result,  from  the  temporary  uncertainty 
concerning  it.  But  nothing  of  the  kind  could  find  place  with  God,  who 
knows  the  end  from  the  beginning,  whose  joy  needs  not  to  be  provoked 
and  heightened  by  a  fear  going  before ;  nor  with  him  need  the  earnest 
love  for  the  one,  as  in  the  case  of  the  mother  and  her  children,  throw  into 
the  back-ground,  even  for  the  moment,  the  love  and  care  for  the  others — 
so  that  the  analogy  hardly  holds  good. 

*  Confessions,  h.  3,  c.  3.  I  have  taken  the  liberty  of  using  here  and  once  before 
the  noble  translation  of  the  Confessions,  published  in  the  Library  of  the  Fathers. 

i  Thus  too  Bernard  says  (In  Cant.,  Serm.  29)  :  Nescio  autem  quomodo  tenerijts 
mihi  adstricti  sunt  qui  post  increpatoria  et  per  increpatoria  tandem  convaluerunt  de 
infirmitate,  quJim  qui  fortes  ab  initio  permanserunt,  non  indigentes  istiusmodi  medica- 
mento, — words  which  are  the  more  valuable  for  the  illustration  of  the  text,  as  spoken 
with  no  immediate  reference  to  it. 


THE  LOST  SHEEP.  297 

And  yet  further,  there  being  said  to  be  any  "  which  need  no  repent- 
ance "  is  difficult,  since  the  prophet  says,  "  All  we  like  sheep  have  gone 
astray  ;"  and  therefore  all  must  have  need  to  search  and  try  back  our 
ways ;  nor  do  the  explanations  commonly  given  quite  remove  the  per- 
plexity.* We  may  indeed  get  rid  both  of  this  difficulty  and  the  other, 
by  seeing  here  an  example  of  the  Lord's  severe  yet  loving  irony.  These 
ninety  and  nine,  not  needing  repentance,  would  then  be — like  those 
whole  who  need  not,  or  count  that  they  need  not,  a  physician, — self- 
righteous  persons,  persons  therefore  displeasing  in  the  eye  of  God,  and 
whose  present  life  could  naturally  cause  no  joy  in  heaven — so  that  it 
would  be  easy  to  understand  how  a  sinner's  conversion  would  cause 
more  joy  than  their  continuance  in  their  evil  state.  But  the  Lord  could 
hardly  have  meant  to  say  merely  this ;  and  moreover,  the  whole  con- 
struction of  the  parables  is  against  such  an  explanation  :  the  ninety  and 
nine  sheep  have  not  wandered,  the  nine  pieces  of  money  have  not  been 
lost,  the  elder  brother  has  not  left  his  father's  house.  The  one  view  of 
the  parables  which  affords  a  solution  of  the  difficulties  appears  to  be 
this — that  we  understand  these  ^'■[righteous  "  as  really  such,  but  also  that 
their  righteousness  is  merely  legal,  is  of  the  old  dispensation,  so  that  the 
least  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  greater  than  they.  The  law  had  done 
a  part  of  its  work  for  them,  keeping  them  from  gross  positive  transgres- 
sions of  its  enactments,  and  thus  they  needed  not,  like  like  the  publicans 
and  sinners,  repentance  on  account  of  such  ;  but  it  had  not  done  an- 
other part  of  its  work,  it  had  not  brought  them,  as  God  intended  it 
should,  to  a  conviction  of  sin,  it  had  not  prepared  them  to  receive 
Christ,  and  gladly  to  embrace  his  salvation.  The  publicans  and  sinners, 
though  by  another  path,  had  come  to  him ;  and  he  now  declares  that 
there  was  more  real  ground  of  joy  over  one  of  these,|  who  were  now 

*  As  for  instance  that  by  Grotius  :  Quibua  non  est  opus  de  toto  vitae  genere  mi- 
grare  ;  and  by  Calvin  ;  Nomen  poenitentiae  specialiter  ad  eorum  conversionem  re- 
stringitur,  qui  penitus  k  Deo  aversi,  quasi  h  morte  in  vitam  resurgunt.  Nam  alioqui 
continua  in  totam  vitam  esse  debet  pcEnitentiae  meditatio  ;  nee  quisquam  ab  hac  ne- 
cessitate eximitur,  quum  singulos  sua  vitia  ad  quotidianum  profectum  sollicitent. — A 
very  curious,  but  not  very  fortunate,  scheme  for  getting  rid  of  the  difficulty  which  at- 
tends the  wrords  "  who  need  no  repentance^  has  been  proposed  by  some.  The  ninety- 
nine  just  signify  the  whole  unfallen  creation,  the  world  of  angels.  "  These,"  says 
Theophylact,  who  however  proposes  the  interpretation  not  as  his  own,  {Jiaaiv  Tives,) 
"  the  good  Shepherd  left  in  the  wilderness,  that  is,  in  the  higher  heavenly  places,  for 
heaven  is  this  wilderness,  being  sequestered  from  all  worldly  tumult,  and  fulfilled  with 
all  tranquillity  and  peace,"  and  came  to  seek  the  wandering  and  lost  human  nature. 
The  interpretation  finds  more  favour  with  Hilary,  Comni.  in  Matth.,  xviii.  10. 

t  Here  the  illustration  of  Gregory  the  Great  may  fairly  be  applied  :  Dux  in  praelio 
plus  eum  militem  diligit,  qui  post  fugam  conversus,  fortiter  hostem  premit,  quira  ilium 
^  20 


298  THE  LOST  PIECE  OF  MONEY. 

entering  into  the  inner  sanctuary  of  faith,  than  over  ninety  and  nine  of 
themselves,  who  lingered  at  the  legal  vestibule,  refusing  to  go  further 

in  ♦ 


PARABLE  XXIII. 


THE   LOST    PIECE    OF    MONEY. 

Luke  xv.  8-10. 

The  parable  which  has  just  gone  before,  has  naturally  anticipated  much 
that  might  have  been  said  upon  this,  and  yet  we  must  not  think  so  poorly 
of  our  Lord's  wisdom  as  a  speaker  of  parables,  as  to  conclude  them 
merely  identical.  It  would  be  against  all  analogy  of  preceding  parables 

qui  nunquam  terga  praebuit  et  nunquam  aliquid  fortiter  gessit.  And  Anselm  {Horn. 
12) ;  Sunt  aliqui  justi,  qui  licet  justi  vivant  et  ab  illicitis  se  contineant,  magna  tamen 
bona  nunquam  operantur.  Et  sunt  alii  qui  prius  seculariter  et  criminose  vixerunt,  sed 
postmodum  redeuntes  ad  cor  suum,  quia  se  illicit^  egisse  considerant,  ex  ipso  suo  do- 
lore  compuncii,  inardescunt  ad  amorem  Dei,  seseque  in  magnis  virtutibus  exercent, 
cuncta  etiam  difficiiia  sancti  certaminis  appetunt,  omnia  mundi  blandimenta  derelin- 
quunt ;  et  quia  se  errasse  a  Deo  conspiciunt,  damna  praecedentia  lucris  sequentibus  re- 
compensant. 

*  There  is  no  image  upon  which  the  early  Church  seems  to  have  dwelt  with 
greater  delight  than  this  of  Christ  as  the  good  Shepherd  bringing  home  his  lost  sheep. 
We  have  abundant  confirmation  of  this  in  the  very  many  gems,  seals,  fragments  of 
glass,  and  other  early  Christian  relics  which  have  reached  us,  on  which  Christ  is  thus 
portrayed  as  bringing  back  a  lost  sheep  to  the  fold  upon  his  shoulders.  From  a  pass- 
ing allusion  in  Tertullian,  {De  Poenit.,  c.  7, 10,)  we  learn  that  it  was  in  his  time  painted 
on  the  chalice  of  the  Holy  Communion.  Christ  appears  in  the  same  character  of  the 
Good  Shepherd  in  bas-reliefs  on  sarcophagi,  and  paintings  in  the  catacombs — one  of 
which  last  is  believed  to  be  as  early  as  the  third  century.  Sometimes  there  are  other 
sheep  at  his  feet,  generally  two,  looking  u~  with  apparent  pleasure  at  him  and  his 
burden  ;  in  his  right  hand  he  most  often  holds  the  seven-reeded  pipe  of  Pan,  the  at- 
tractions of  divine  love,  with  his  left  he  steadies  the  burden  which  he  is  bearing  on  his 
shoulders.  Sometimes  he  is  sitting  down,  as  if  weary  with  the  length  of  the  way. 
And  it  is  observable  that  this  representation  always  occupies  the  place  of  honour,  the 
centre  of  the  vault  or  tomb.  In  Hunter's  Sinnbilder  der  Alt.  Christ.,  v.  1,  pp. 
60-65,  there  are  various  details  on  the  subject,  and  many  copies  of  these  portraitures, 
which  are  interesting  specimens  of  early  Christian  art.  See  too  Bossio's  Eom.  Sotterr. 
f)p.  339,  348,  349,  351,  373,  383,  387,  for  various  delineations  of  the  same,  and 
Didron's  Iconogr.  Chretienne,  p.  346. 


THE  LOST  PIECE  OP  MONEY.  299 

to  presume  that  these  two  said  merely  the  same  thing,  twice  over.  The 
Pearl  and  the  Hid  Treasure,  the  Leaven  and  the  Mustard  Seed,  at  first 
sight  appear  the  same,  and  the  second  but  to  repeat  the  first,  and  yet,  as 
we  have  found,  on  closer  inspection  important  differences  reveal  them- 
selves;  and  so  is  it  here.  If  the  shepherd  in  the  last  parable  was 
Christ,  the  woman  in  this  may,  perhaps,  be  the  Church  ;*  or  if  we  say 
that  by  her  is  signified  the  Divine  Wisdom,f  which  so  often  in  Proverbs 
is  described  as  seeking  the  salvation  of  men,  and  is  here  as  elsewhere 
set  forth  as  a  person  (Luke  xi.  49,)  and  not  an  attribute,  this  will  be  no 
different  view.  For  rather  these  two  explanations  flow  into  one,  when 
we  keep  in  mind  how  the  Church  is  the  organ  in  and  through  which  the 
Holy  Spirit  seeks  for  the  lost,  and  how  only  as  the  Church  is  quickened 
and  informed  by  the  Divine  Spirit,  is  it  stirred  up  to  these  active  minis- 
tries of  love  for  the  seeking  and  saving  of  souls.  That  the  Church 
should  be  personified  as  a  woman  is  only  natural  ;  nor  has  the  thought 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  as  a  mother  been  at  ditferent  times  far  from  men's 
minds4  Keeping  prominently  in  mind  then  that  it  is  only  the  Church, 
because  and  in  so  far  as  it  is  dwelt  in  by  the  Spirit,  which  appears  as 
the  woman  seeking  her  lost,  that  it  is  only  as  the  Spirit  says  "  Come," 
that  the  Bride  can  say  it,  we  shall  have  in  the  three  parables  the  three 
Persons  of  the  Holy  Trinity,  albeit  not  in  their  order,  since  other  re- 
spects prevailed  to  give  the  parables  a  different  succession.  Moreover, 
any  reluctance  to  accept  this  interpretation,  as  though  it  were  putting 
the  Church  too  near  upon  an  equality  with  irs  Lord,  is  in  this  way  re- 
moved ;  and  besides,  if  we  do  find  in  this  parable  a  picture  of  the  Church 
carrying  forward  the  same  work  which  its  Lord  auspicated  and  com- 
menced, what  is  this  but  in  agreement  with  Christ's  own  words,  that  it 
should  do  the  same  works  that  he  did  and  greater — only,  however,  be- 
cause he  went  to  the  Father,  and  shedding  abroad  the  Holy  Ghost,  him- 
self carried  on  from  heaven  the  work  which  he  had  begun  in  his  own 
person  upon  earth  ? 

In  the  one  piece  of  money, f  which  the  woman  loses  out  of  her  ten, 

*  Ambrose  ;  Qui  sunt  isti,  pater,  pastor,  mulier  1  nonne  Deus  pater,  Christus  pas- 
tor, mulier  Ecclesia  1 

t  Gregory  the  Great  (Horn.  34  in  Evang )  ;  Ipse  etenim  Deus,  ipse  et  Dei  Sa- 
pientia. 

i  See  some  interesting  remarks  in  Jerome  {Comm.  in  Esai.  xl.  3,  p.  303)  explain- 
ing and  justifying  this  language  ;  while  at  the  same  time  he  guards  with  saying;  In 
divinitate  nulius  est  sexus.  Christ  claims  too  for  himself  the  mother's  heart  in  his 
affecting  words,  Luke  xiii.  34. 

^  In  the  original,  it  is  not  indefinitely  a  piece  of  money,  but  a  drachma,  the  com- 
monest of  Greek  coins.     Except  during  a  part  of  the  Maccabaean  rule,  the  Jews  never 


300  THE  LOST  PIECE  OF  MONEY. 

expositors,  both  ancient  and  modern,  have  delighted  to  trace  a  resem- 
blance to  the  human  soul,  which  was  originally  stamped  with  the  image 
and  superscription  of  the  great  King,*  ("  God  created  man  in  his  own 
image,"  Gen.  i.  27,)  and  which  still  retains  traces  of  the  mint  from 
which  it  proceeded,  though  by  sin  the  image  has  been  nearly  effaced, 
and  the  superscription  has  well  nigh  become  illegible. "j"  Nor  is  this  all ; 
as  the  piece  of  money  is  lost  for  all  useful  purposes  lo  its  right  ownei", 
so  man,  through  sin,  is  become  unprofitable,  and  worse  than  unprofitable, 
to  God,  who  has  not  from  him  that  service  which  is  due. 

But  as  the  woman  having  lost  her  piece  of  money,  will  "  light  a 
candle  and  sioeepX  the  house,  and  seek  diligently  till  she  fold  it  ;"  even 
so  the  Lord,  through  the  ministrations  of  his  Church,  gives  diligence  to 
recover  the  lost  sinner, — to  bring  back  the  piece  of  money  that  was  lost 
to  the  treasury  of  God,  from  which  originally  it  issued. §  The  mean- 
ing which  the  Mystics  have  often  found  in  the  lighting  of  the  candle 
or  lamp,  namely  that  there  is  an  allusion  here  to  the  mystery  of  the  In- 
carnation— the   divine   glory  which    the   Saviour  had    within,   shining 

coined  any  money  of  their  own.  Tlie  Herodian  coins,  now  found  in  collections,  were 
rather  medals  struck  on  particular  occasions,  than  money. 

*  Thus  Augustine  {Enarr.in  Ps.  exxxviii.) :  Sapientia  Dei  perdiderat  drachmam. 
Quid  est  Drachma?  Numus  in  quo  numo  imago  erat  ipsius  Imperatoris  nostri. 
Compare  Ignatius,  {Ad  3Iagn.,c.5,)  though  he  refers  not  to  this  parable:  'Ecnv  vofiia- 
uara  ivo,  S  [ilv  Qeuv,  S  61  Kocjiov,  ko'i  sKaarov  avriov  Wioj/  ^apaKTijpa  iiriKeiftevov  £;^£',  o't  uKtaroi 
Toii  KOtx^ov  Tovrov,  ol  6i  ttiotoi   cv  dyaTrji  ^apaKTPipa  Oeov  YlaTpos'iia   'ijjtov  XpiOToC. 

t  It  is  true  that  against  this  view  it  may  be  said  that  the  Greek  drachma,  the  coin 
here  particularly  named,  had  not,  like  the  Roman  denarius,  (Matt.  xxii.  20,)  the  image 
and  superscription  of  the  emperor  upon  it,  but  commonly  some  image,  as  of  an  owl, 
or  tortoise,  or  head  of  Pallas. 

t  The  erroneous  reading,  evertit,  for  everrit,  prevailed  in  the  copies  of  the  Vulgate 
during  the  middle  ages.  It  appears  as  early  as  Gregory  the  Great,  {Horn.  34  in  Evang.) 
who  says:  Domus  et)er<i7ur,  quum  consideratione  reatiis  sui  humana  conscientia  per- 
turbatur.  And  Thauler's  interpretation  a  good  deal  turns  on  that  very  word :  Deus 
hominem  quaeril,  domumque  ejus  penitus  evertit,  quomodo  nos  solemus,  aliquod  requi- 
rentes,  cuncta  evertere,  et  loco  suo  movere,  donee  invenire  contingat  quod  quaerimus. 
So  Wiclif:  "  Turneih  up  so  down  the  house." 

§  H.  de  Sto  Victore  :  Drachma  reperitur,  dum  in  homine  similitudo  conditoris  re- 
para  tur  ;  and  Bernard  {De  Grat.  et  Lib.  Arb.,c.  10):  Adhuc  liic  foeda  et  deformis 
jacuisset  imago,  si  non  evangelica  ilia  mulier  lucernam  accenderet,  id  est,  Sapientia  in 
carne  appareret,  everreret  domum,  videlicet  vitiorum,  drachmam  suam  reqiiireret  quam 
perdiderat ;  hoc  est  imaginem  suam,  quae  native  spoliata  decore,  sub  pelle  peccati  sor- 
dens  tamquam  in  pulvere  latitabat :  inventam  tergeret,  et  tolleret  de  rcgione  dissimili- 
tudinis,  pristinamque  in  speciem  reforraatam,similem  faceret  illam  in  gloria,  sanctorum, 
immo  sibi  ipsi  per  omnia  redderet  quandoque  conformem,  ciim  illud  Scripturae  videlicet 
impleretur  ;  Scimus  quia  cilm  apparuerit,  similes  ei  erimus  ;  quoniam  videbimus  eum 
Bicuti  est. 


THE  LOST  PIECE  OP  MONEY.  301 

through  the  fleshly  covering  which  only  in  part  concealed  it,* — this  must 
of  course  give  vvay,  if  we  take  the  parable  as  I  propose.  Rather  the 
lighting  of  the  candle  must  be  explained  by  the  help  and  hints  of  such 
passages  as  these,  namely  Matt,  v,  14,  15  ;  Phil.  ii.  15  ;  Ephes.  v.  13. 
The  candle  is  the  word  of  God  ; — this  candle  the  Church  holds  forth,  as 
she  has  and  exercises  a  ministry  of  the  Word.  It  is  by  the  light  of  this 
Word  that  sinners  are  found — that  they  find  themselves,  that  the  Church 
find  them.f  Having  this  candle  now  to  assist  her  in  her  search  she  pro- 
ceeds to  sweep  the  house,  which,  as  Bengel  well  remarks,  non  fit  sine 
pulvere.  What  a  deranging  of  the  house  for  a  time  !  how  does  the  dust 
which  had  been  allowed  to  settle  down  and  accumulate  begin  to  rise  and 
fly  about  in  every  direction ;  how  unwelcome  that  which  is  going  for- 
ward to  any  that  may  be  the  house  and  have  no  interest  in  the  finding 
of  that  which  has  been  lost.  Thus  it  is  with  the  word  of  God.  Ever- 
more the  charge  against  it  is,  that  it  turns  the  world  upside  down,  even 
as  indeed  it  does.  For  only  let  that  Word  be  proclaimed,  and  how 
much  of  latent  aversion  to  the  truth  becomes  now  open  enmity  ;  how 
much  of  torpid  alienation  against  God  is  changed  into  active  hostility ; 
what  an  outcry  is  there  against  the  troublers  of  Israel,  against  the  wit- 
nesses that  torment  the  dwellers  upon  earth,  the  men  that  will  not  leave 
the  world  alone.  But  amid  all  this,  while  others  are  making  outcry 
about  the  dust  and  inconvenience,  she  that  bears  the  candle  of  the  Lord 
is  diligently  looking  meanwhile  for  her  lost,  not  ceasing  her  labour, 
her   care,  her  diligence,  till  she  has  recovered  her  own  again. 

We  must  not  omit  to  remark  a  ditference  between  this  parable  and 
the  preceding,  which  is  more  than  accidental.  In  that  the  shepherd 
went  to  look  for  his  lost  sheep  in  the  wilderness ;  but  it  is  m  the 
house  that  this  piece  of  money  is  lost,  and  there  by  the  consequence  that 
is  sought  for.:]:     There   is  then  a   progress  from  that  parable  to  this. 

*  Thus  Cajetan  ;  Lucerna  accensa  niysterium  est  Incarnationis,  Verbum  in  came, 
tanquam  lux  in  testa. 

t  So  Tertullian  {De  Fudic,  c.  7) :  Drachmam  ad  lucernae  lumen  repertam,  quasi 
ad  Dei  verbum. 

t  Origen  also  presses  the  fact  that  this  money  was  found  within  the  house,  and  not 
without  it,  though  with  a  different  purpose.  He  is  dealing  with  Gen.  xxvi.  18,  to 
which  he  very  fairly  gives  a  deeper  and  allegorical  interpretation,  besides  that  which 
lay  on  the  surface,  namely  this, — that  those  stopped  wells  are  the  fountains  of  eternal 
life,  which  the  Philistines,  that  is,  Satan  and  sin,  had  choked,  but  which  our  Isaac,  the 
son  of  gladness,  opened  anew  for  us.  And  observing  that  such  wells,  though  stopped 
indeed,  are  within  every  one  of  us,  (compare  John  iv.  14,)  he  brings  into  comparison 
this  parable,  noting  that  the  lost  money  was  not  found  without  the  house,  but  within 
it :  for,  he  would  say,  at  the  bottom  of  every  man's  soul  there  is  this  image  of  God, 
mislaid  indeed  and  quite  out  of  sight,  overlaid  with  a  thousand  other  images,  covered 


302  THE  LOST  PIECE  OF  MONEY. 

The  earthly  house,  the  visible  Church,  now  first  appears.  In  that  other 
there  was  the  returning  of  the  Son  to  the  heavenly  places,  but  in  this 
there  is  intimation  of  a  church  which  has  been  founded  upon  earth,  and 
to  which  also  sinners  are  restored.  And  there  are  other  slighter  varia- 
tions between  the  two  parables,  explicable  at  once  on  the  same  suppo- 
sition that  we  have  there  the  more  immediate  ministry  of  Christ,  and 
here  the  secondary  ministry  of  his  Church.  The  shepherd  says,  "I 
have  found  my  sheep" — not  so  the  woman,  "  I  have  found  ilie  coin" — 
for  it  is  in  no  sense  hers  as  the  sheep  was  his.  He  says,  "  which  was 
lost:"  but  she,  "  which  /lost,"  confessing  a  fault  and  carelessness  of 
her  own,  which  was  the  original  cause  of  the  loss — even  as  it  must  have 
been;  for  a  sheep  strays  of  itself,  but  a  piece  of  money  could  only  be 
lost  by  a  certain  negligence  on  the  part  of  such  as  should  have  kept  it. 
The  woman  having  found  her  own,  "  calleth  her  friends,  and  her 
neighbours  together/'  that  they  may  be  sharers  in  her  joy.  (Compare 
Ruth  iv.  14,  17.)  It  is  only  natural  that,  according  to  the  ground- 
work of  the  parable,  this  being  a  woman,  the  friends  and  neighbours  she 
summons  should  be  described  as  female  also,  though  this  escapes  us  in 
the  English  version.  That  they  are  so  does  not  hinder  us  in  apply- 
ing  the  words, — we  have  indeed  in  the  next  verse  the  Lord's  warrant 
for  applying  them, — to  the  angels;  whose  place  we  shall  observe  is  not 
"  in  heaven"  in  this  parable  which  it  was  in  the  last ;  for  this  is  the  re- 
joicing together  of  the  redeemed  and  elect  creation  upon  earth  at  the  re- 
pentance of  a  sinner.  The  angels  that  walk  up  and  down  the  earth, 
that  are  present  in  the  congregations  of  the  faithful,  offended  at  aught 
unseemly  among  them,  (I  Cor.  xi.  10,)  joying  to  behold  their  order,  but 
most  of  all  joying  when  a  sinner  is  converted, — there  shall  be  joy  be- 
before  them,  when  the  Church  of  the  redeemed,  quickened  by  the  Holy 
Spirit,  summons  them  to  join  with  it  in  consenting  hymns  of  thanksgiv- 

with  dust  and  defilement,  but  which  still  may  be  found,  and  in  his  hands  from  whom 
it  first  came,  may  again  recover  its  first  brightness,  and  the  sharpness  of  outline  which 
it  had  at  the  beginning.  His  words  are  {In  Gen.  Horn.  13) :  Mulier  ilia  quae  perdi- 
derat  drachmam,  non  illam  invenit  extrinsecus,  sed  in  domo  sua.  posteaquam  accendit 
lucernam,  et  mundavit  domum  sordibus  et  immunditiis,  quos  iongi  temporis  ignavia  et 
hebetudo  congesserat,  et  ibi  invenit  drachmam.  Et  tu  ergo,  si  accendas  lucernam,  si 
adhibeas  tibi  illuminationem  SpiriiCls  Sancti,  et  in  lumine  ejus  videas  lumen,  invenies 
intra  te  drachmam.  Ciim  enim  faceret  hominem  ex  initio  Deus,  ad  imaginem  et  simi- 
litudinem  suam  fecit  eum  ;  et  banc  imaginem  non  extrinsecus,  sed  intra  eum  collocavit. 
Ha2C  in  to  videri  non  poterat,  donee  domus  lua  sordida  erat,  immunditiis  et  ruderibus 
repleta.  Iste  fons  scientiae  intra  te  erat  situs,  sed  non  poterat  fluere,quia  Philistini  re- 
plcverant  eum  terra,  et  fecerant  in  te  imaginem  terreni.  Sed  tu  portasti  quidem  tunc 
imaginem  terreni,  nunc  ver6  his  auditis  ab  ilia,  omni  mole  et  oppressione  terren&  per 
Verbum  Dei  purgatus,  imaginem  coDlestis  in  te  splendescere  facito. 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON.  303 

ing  to  God  for  the  recovery  of  a  lost  soul.  For  indeed  if  the  "  sons  of 
God*'  shouted  for  joy  and  sang  together  at  the  first  creation,  (Job 
xxxviii.  7,)  how  much  more  when  a  new  creation  has  found  place,  at 
the  birth  of  a  soul  into  the  light  of  everlasting  life  ;  (Ephes.  iii.  10  ;  1 
Pet.  i.  12  ;)  for  according  to  that  exquisite  word  of  St.  Bernard's,  the  tears 
of  penitence  are  the  wine  of  angels,*  and  their  conversion,  as  Luther 
says,  causes  Te  Deums  among  the  heavenly  host. 


PARABLE  XXIY. 


THE    PRODIGAL    SON. 

Luke  xv.  11-32. 

We  have  now  come  to  a  parable  which,  if  it  be  permitted  to  compare 
things  divine  one  with  another,  we  might  call  the  pearl  and  crown  of  all 
the  parables  of  Scripture ;  as  it  is  also  the  most  elaborate,  if  again  we 
might  venture  to  use  a  word,  which  has  an  evident  unfitness  when  ap- 
plied to  the  spontaneous  and  the  free,  but  which  yet  the  completeness  of 
all  the  minor  details  seems  to  suggest ; — one  too  containing  within  itself 
such  a  circle  of  doctrine  as  abundantly  to  justify  the  title  Evangelium  in 
Evangelio,  which  has  been  sometimes  given  it.  In  regard  of  its  great 
primary  application,  there  have  always  been  two  different  views  in  the 
Church.  There  are  those  who  have  seen  in  the  two  sons  the  Jew  and 
Gentile,  and  in  the  younger  son's  departure  from  his  father's  house,  the 
history  of  the  great  apostacy  of  the  Gentile  world,  in  his  return  its  recep- 
tion  into  the  privileges  of  the  new  covenant  ; — as  in  the  elder  brother  a 
lively  type  of  the  narrow-hearted  self-extolling  Jews,  who  grudged  that 
the  "sinners  of  the  Gentiles  "  should  be  admitted  to  the  same  blessings 
as  themselves,  and  who  on  this  account  would  not  themselves  "go  m." 
Others,  again,  have  beheld  in  the  younger  son  a  pattern  of  all  those  who, 
whether  Jews  or  Gentiles,  whether  in  that  old  dispensation  which  was 

*  Poenitentium  lacrymffi,  vinum  Angelorum  ;  and  with  allusion  to  this  parable  the 
Christian  poet  sings: — 

Amissa  drachma  regio 
Recondita  est  aerario ; 
Et  gemma,  deterso  luto, 
Nitore  vincit  sidera. 


304  THE  PRODIGAL  SON. 

then  drawing  to  an  end,  or  brought  up  in  the  bosom  of  the  Christian 
Church,  have  widely  departed  from  God,  and  after  having  tasted  the 
misery  which  follows  upon  all  departure  from  him,  have  by  his  grace 
been  brought  back  to  him,  as  to  the  one  source  of  blessedness  and  life  ; 
— while  they  in  the  elder  brother  have  seen  either  a  narrow  form  of  real 
righteousness,  or,  accepting  his  words  to  be  only  his  own  account  of  him- 
self, of  Pharisaical  self-righteousness, — one  righteous  in  his  own  sight, 
not  in  the  Lord's. 

They  who  maintain  this  last  explanation,  object  to  the  other  which 
makes  the  two  sons  to  represent  the  Jew  and  Gentile,  (and  the  objection 
appears  decisive,)  that  it  is  alien  to  the  scope  of  the  parable ;  for  that 
was  spoken  in  reply  to  the  murmurings  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees, 
(ver.  1,  2,)  who  were  offended  that  Jesus  received  and  consorted  with  publi- 
cans and  sinners.  Before  that  interpretation  can  have  any  claim  to  stand,  it 
must  be  shown  that  these  publicans  and  sinners  were  heathens.  Tertul- 
lian,  indeed,  boldly  asserts  that  the  publicans  were  always  heathens  ;  but 
he  was  not  very  careful  what  he  asserted  when  he  had  a  point  to  prove, 
which  he  had  in  the  present  instance,  namely  this,  that  no  encourage- 
ment could  be  drawn  from  this  Scripture  for  the  receiving  back  of  great 
offenders  into  Church  communion.  But  there  is  abundant  evidence, 
some  Scriptural,  and  more  derived  from  other  sources,  that  many  of  the 
publicans,  probably  of  those  in  Judsea,  if  not  all,  yet  far  the  greater  num- 
ber, were  of  Jewish  birth.  Zacchasus  was  "a  son  of  Abraham,"  (Luke 
xix.  9,)  and  Levi,  who  sat  at  the  receipt  of  customs,  must  needs  have 
been  so  too  :  and  publicans  were  among  those  who  came  to  the  baptism 
of  John.  (Luke  vii.  29.*)  They  were  indeed  placed  by  their  fellow- 
countrymen  on  a  level  with  heathens  ;  and  some  heathen  publicans  even 
within  the  limits  of  Judjea  there  may  have  been,  but  doubtless  these 
whom  Jesus  received,  and  with  whom  he  consorted,  were  publicans  of 
Jewish  origin,  for  with  none  but  Jews  did  he  familiarly  live  during  his 
walk  upon  earth ;  he  was  "  not  sent  but  unto  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house 
of  Israel;"  and  John  xii.  20-22  shows  us  how  unusual  a  thing  it  was 
for  him  to  break  through  this  rule.f 


*  See  also  Lightfoot,  Ilor.  Heb.,  on  Matt.  v.  4G. 

t  Many  of  these  arguments  in  pioof  tliat  the  publicans  of  the  New  Testament 
were  Jews,  are  adduced  by  Jerome.  {Ep.  21,  ad  Damasum.)  He  seems  lost  in  wonder 
(vehementer  admiror)  at  the  audacity  of  Tertullian's  assertion  to  the  contrary.  The 
great  aim  of  the  latter  in  his  treatise  De  Pudicitia,  c.  7-9,  written  after  he  had  for- 
saken the  Catholic  Church,  is  by  proving  that  contrary,  to  rob  the  parable  of  all  the 
encouragement  and  consolation  which  it  might  otherwise  afford  to  the  penitent  sinner ; 
and  in  his  passionate  eagerness  for  this,  he  does  not  pause  at  a  small  matter, — for  in- 
stance, he  declares  the  occasion  of  the  parable  to  have  been,  quod  Pharisaei  publicanos 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON.  305 

These  "  publicans  and  sinners  "  then  were  Jews — outcasts  indeed  of 
the  nation,  scorned  and  despised,  and  till  the  words  of  Christ  had  awa- 
kened in  them  a  nobler  life,  no  doubt  deserving  all  or  nearly  all  the  scorn 
and  contempt  which  they  found.  The  parables  in  this  chapter  are  spo- 
ken  to  justify  his  conduct  in  the  matter  of  receiving  them,  not  to  unfold 
another  and  far  deeper  mystery — that  of  the  calling  of  the  Gentiles,  of 
which  during  his  lifetime  he  gave  only  a  few  hints  even  to  his  chosen 
disciples,  and  which  for  long  after  was  a  difficulty  and  stumbling-block 
even  to  them.  Much  more  would  it  now  have  been  an  offence  to  the 
scribes  and  Pharisees  ;  to  them  therefore  he  would  not  needlessly  have 
opened  it,  least  of  all  at  a  time  when  he  was  seeking  to  reconcile  them 
to  his  dealings,  and  if  possible  to  win  them  also  for  his  kingdom.  Both 
these  reasons, — first,  that  the  parable  was  spoken  to  justify  his  reception, 
not  of  Gentiles,  but  of  Jews ;  and  secondly,  that  the  mystery  of  the  Gen- 


et  peccatores  ethnicos  adtnittentem  Dominum  mussitabant.  One  cannot  sufficiently 
admire  his  bold  insertion  of  the  ethnicos,  nor  how  elsewhere  {Adv.  Marc,  1.  4,  c.  37,) 
even  our  Lord's  declaration  that  Zacchasus  was  "  a  son  of  Abraham,"  is  not  decisive 
with  him,  (Zacchseus  etsi  allophylus  fortasse,  tamen  aliqua  notitia.  Scripturarum  ex 
commercio  Judaico  afflatus,)  nor  his  proof  from  Deut.  xxiii.  18,  that  no  Israelite  could 
have  been  a  publican,  in  which  matter  it  is  difficult  to  think  that  one  so  profoundly 
skilled  in  all  Roman  antiquities  should  not  have  known  better.  His  fear  is  lest  sinners 
should  be  overbold  in  their  sin,  having  hope,  like  the  prodigal,  to  find  favour  and  grace 
whenever  they  will  return  to  their  God ;  and  he  asks,  "  Who  will  fear  to  squander 
what  he  can  afterwards  recover?  Who  will  care  always  to  keep  what  he  is  not  in 
danger  of  always  losing?"  But  if  once,  leaving  the  ground  of  Scripture,  he  comes  to 
arguments  of  this  sort,  we  might  demand  in  return, — Is  it  on  calculations  of  this  sort 
that  men  rush  into  sin?  and  not  rather  because  they  believe  their  good  is  there,  and 
not  in  God  ?  And  how  little  was  he  really  promoting  holiness  in  this  his  false  zeal  for 
it :  for  if  there  had  been  a  deeper  depth  of  sin  and  pollution,  into  that  no  doubt  the 
prodigal  would  have  sunk,  but  that  his  sure  faith  in  the  unchanging  love  of  his  father 
extricated  him  both  from  the  sin  in  which  he  was,  and  that  yet  further  sin  into  which 
he  would  but  for  that  inevitably  have  fallen.  Tell  men  after  they  have  sinned  grievously 
that  there  is  for  them  no  hope  of  pardon,  or,  which  amounts  to  the  same  thing,  give 
them  only  a  dim  uncertain  distant  hope  of  it,  and  you  will  not  hinder  one  by  all  these 
precautions  and  warnings  from  squandering  his  goodly  heritage,  but  you  may  hinder 
ten  thousand  poor  miserable  sinners  that  have  discovered  the  wtetchedness  of  a  life  apart 
from  God,  from  returnmg  to  their  Father's  house,  from  throwing  themselves  on  the 
riches  of  his  mercy,  and  henceforward  living,  not  to  the  lusts  of  men,  but  to  the  will  of 
God:  and  every  one  of  these  that  is  thus  kept  at  a  distance  will  inevitably  be  falling 
from  bad  to  worse,  departing  wider  and  wider  from  his  God.  It  is  worth  while  to  see 
what  motives^to  repentance  Chrysostom  (Ad  Theod.  Laps.,  1.  7)  draws  from  this  very 
parable,  and  his  yet  more  memorable  words  {De  Pa  nit.,  Horn.  1.  4),  where  among 
other  things  he  says, — ovros  Totwv  b  vlds  eiKdi/a  tuv  fieri  TO  Xovrpov  (pcpci  TicadvTuyv,  which  he 
proceeds  to  prove.  Compare  the  exposition  of  the  parable  by  St.  Ambrose  {De  Pmnit., 
1.  2,  c.  3,)  against  the  Novatianists. 


306  THE  PRODIGAL  SON. 

tiles  as  fellow-heirs  with  the  Jews  in  the  covenant  of  promise,  was  no; 
unfolded  till  a  later  period,  and  certainly  not  first  to  cavillers  and  adver- 
saries,  but  to  friends, — strongly  recommend  the  latter  as  the  truer  inter- 
pretation. Yet  will  not  the  other  therefore  be  rigorously  excluded ;  for 
the  parable  sets  forth  the  relations  of  men  to  God,  and  wherever  those 
relations  exist,  it  will  find  a  more  or  less  extensive  application.  It  found 
a  fulfilment,  though  not  its  primary  one,  in  the  relations  in  which  Jew 
and  Gentile  stood  to  one  another  and  to  God.  Again,  what  the  whole 
Jewish  people  were  to  the  Gentile  world  in  respect  of  superior  privileges 
and  advantages,  in  respect  too  of  freedom  from  some  of  its  worst  enormi- 
ties, that,  within  its  own  body,  were  the  scribes  and  Pharisees  to  the  pub- 
licans and  sinners,  so  that  here  too  it  found  its  application.  And  not  less 
within  the  Christian  Church, — however  wide  may  have  been  the  sinner's 
departure  from  God,  he  may  be  encouraged  to  return  by  the  example  of 
the  prodigal,  who  returning  found  yet  again  a  place  in  his  father's  house, 
and  in  his  father's  heart.  This  blessed  assurance  we  win  from  the  fact 
that  it  was  sinners  wilhin  the  covenant  to  whom  the  Lord  had  regard  and 
whom  he  portrayed  in  the  younger  son,  not  sinners,  as  Tertullian  would 
fain  have  us  believe,  without  it. 

Of  these  two  sons,  "  the  younger  said  to  his  father,  Give  me  the  portion 
of  goods  that  falleth  to  me."  His  claiming  of  his  share  in  this  technical, 
and  almost  legal,  form*  is  a  delicate  touch,  characteristic  of  the  entire 
alienation  from  all  home  affections  which  has  already  found  place  in  his 
heart.  It  is  apparently  too  as  a  right  that  he  claims  it,  not  as  a  favour  : 
and  such  a  right  the  Lord  may  mean  to  assume  that  he  had.  Those  au- 
thors  indeed  who  have  brought  Oriental  customs  and  manners  in  illustra- 
tion of  Scripture,  however  they  may  prove  such  a  right  or  custom  to  have 
existed  among  some  nations  of  the  East,  for  example,  among  the  Hindoos, 
adduce  no  satisfactory  proof  of  its  having  been  in  force  among  the  Jews.f 
But  we  need  not  conceive  of  the  younger  son  as  asking  this  his  portion  of 
goods  as  a  right — only  as  a  favour  ;  "  That  portion  which  will  hereafter 
fall  to  me,  which  thou  designest  for  me  at  last,  I  would  fain  receive  it 
now."     This  portion,  according  to  the  Jewish  laws  of  inheritance,  would 

*  Tu  £7rc/?dAXoi/  jxipoi  rtji  ovaia;  =  ratam  haEreditatis  partem  ;  the  phrase  like  so 
many  in  Luke  is  classical  and  happily  selected  ;  it  is  'of  no  rare  occurrence  in  good 
Greek  authors.     (See  Wetstein,  in  loc.) 

t  RosENMULLER,  ^Z<e  uTid  Neuc  i»/orgenZ.,  v.  5,  p.  1 15.  There  is  reference  in- 
deed to  something  of  the  sort,  Gen.  xxv.  5,  6,  where  Abraham  in  his  lifetime  would 
seem  to  have  given  the  main  body  of  his  possessions  to  Isaac,  having  given  gifts  also 
to  the  sons  of  his  concubines,  evidently  their  portions  ;  for  having  endowed  them  with 
these,  he  sent  them  away.  But  it  seems  there  recorded  as  something  unusual — proba- 
bly a  wise  precaution  to  avoid  disputes  after  his  death. 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON.  307 

be  the  half  of  what  the  elder  brother  would  receive.  (Deut.  xxi.  17.) 
What  does  this  request  mean,  when  we  come  to  give  it  its  spiritual  sig. 
nificance  ?  It  is  the  expression  of  man's  desire  to  be  independent  of  God, 
to  be  a  God  to  himself,  (Gen.  iii.  5,)  and  to  lay  out  his  life  according  to 
his  own  will  and  for  his  own  pleasure.  It  is  man  growing  weary  of  liv- 
ing upon  God  and  upon  his  fulness,  and  desiring  to  take  the  ordering  of 
his  life  into  his  own  hands,  and  believing  that  he  can  be  a  ibuntain  of 
blessedness  to  himself.*  All  the  subsequent  sins  of  the  younger  son  are 
included  in  this  one,  as  in  their  germ, — are  but  the  unfolding  of  this,  the 
sin  of  sins.  We  express  the  true  godly  feeling  which  is  directly  opposed 
to  "  Give  me  my  portion  of  goods,"  in  our  daily  petition,  "  Give  us  this 
day  our  daily  bread  :"  we  therein  acknowledge  that  we  desire  to  wait 
continually  upon  God  for  the  supply  of  our  needs,  both  bodily  and  spirit- 
ual, that  we  recognize  our  dependence  upon  him  as  our  true  blessedness. 
In  the  earthly  relationship  which  supplies  the  groundwork  of  the  para- 
ble, the  fact  of  the  son  first  growing  weary  of  receiving  from  his  father, 
and  presently  altogether  quitting  his  father's  house,  has  not  the  full 
amount  of  guilt  which  it  has  in  the  heavenly  ;  though,  indeed,  the  con- 
tempt,  or  slighting  of  the  earthly  relationship  inevitably  brings  with  it 
cont^Vnpt,  or  slighting  of  the  heavenly  ;  the  former  being  constituted  to 
lead  us  into  the  knowledge  of  the  blessings  which  are  laid  up  in  the 
other  :  and  where  the  lower  is  despised,  the  higher  will  inevitably  be  de- 
spised also. 

The  father '^  divided  unto  them  his  living."-\  It  would  have  little 
profited  to  retain  hiin  at  home  against  his  will,  who  had  already  in  heart 
become  strange  to  that  home  :  rather  he  will  let  the  young  man  discover, 
by  bitter  experience,  the  folly  of  his  request.  Such,  at  least,  is  the  deal- 
ing of  God  :  he  has  constituted  man  a  spiritual  being,  that  is,  a  being 
with  a  will ;  and  when  his  service  no  longer  appears  to  man  a  perfect 
freedom,  and  man  promises  himself  liberty  elsewhere,  he  is  allowed  to 
make  the  trial,:}:  and  to  discover,  if  needs  be,  by  woful  experience,  that 
the  only  condition  of  his  freedom  is  his  cleaving  unto  God  ;  that  depart- 
ing from  him,  he  inevitably  falls  under  the  horrible  bondage  of  his  own 
lusts  and  of  the  world, §  and  under  the  tyranny  of  the  devil. 

*  Bernard  observes,  thtit  it  is  a  sign  of  evil  augury,  when  this  son — bonum  incipit 
velle  dividere,  quod  in  commune  dulciiis  possidetur,  et  habere  solus,  quod  participatione 
non  minuitur,  partitione  amittitur. 

t  Tdv  (i'iov  =  facultates  ;  so  Mark  xii.  44  ;  Luke  viii.  43  ;  xxi.  4  ;  and  1  John  iii. 
17,  Tov  0iov  rov  k6(thov.  There  is  this  use  of  the  word  in  Plato.  (Z?e  Jiep.,  I.  3,  p.  228, 
Stallbaum's  ed.) 

t  See  Chrysostom,  De  Paenit.,  Horn.  1.  4. 

§  Augustine  :  Si  haerebis  superiori,  calcabis  inferiora  ;  si  autem  recedas  a  superiori 
ista  tibi  in  supplicium  convertentur. 


308  THE  PRODIGAL  SON. 

And  now  the  younger  son  is  that  which  he  desired, 
"  Lord  of  himself — that  heritage  of  woe," 

as  he,  too,  shall  shortly  find  it.  Yet  though  he  had  thus  craved  and 
obtained  his  portion,  it  was  not  till  after  a  few  days  that  he  left  his  home. 
St.  Bernard  sees  a  force  in  this  circumstance,  and  observes  how  the 
apostacy  of  the  heart  will  often  precede  the  apostacy  of  the  life  ;*  that 
there  may  be  an  interval  between  them,  though  the  last  must  of  neces- 
sity sooner  or  later  follow  the  first.  The  sinner  is,  indeed,  pleasing  him- 
self, but  the  divergence  of  his  will  and  the  will  of  God  does  not  imme- 
diately appear :  soon,  however,  it  must ;  and  thus  it  came  to  pass,  that 
''not  many  days  after  the  younger  son  gathered  all  together,"  turned,  we 
may  suppose,  all  that  fell  to  his  share  into  ready  money,  or  into  valua- 
bles  that  he  could  easily  carry  with  him,  "  and  took  his  journey  into  a 
far  country."  By  this  gathering  together  of  all  and  departing,  seems 
intimated  the  collecting,  on  man's  part,  of  all  his  energies  and  powers, 
with  the  deliberate  determination  of  getting,  through  their  help,  all  the 
gratification  he  can  out  of  the  world, — the  open  preference  of  the  crea- 
ture to  the  Creator, — the  manifest  turning  of  the  back  upon  God.f  The 
"far  country"  is  a  world  where  God  is  not.:j:  There  he  "wasted,"  or 
scattered,  "his  substance  with  riotous  living" — so  quickly  has  the  gather- 
ing which  was  mentioned  but  now,  issued  in  a  scattering,  so  little  was  it 
a  gathering  that  deserved  the  name.  But  there  is  no  such  waster  as  the 
sinner. 

For  a  while,  it  may  be,  the  supplies  which  the  young  man  brought 
with  him  into  that  far  land  lasted ;  and  while  this  was  so,  he  may  have 
congratulated  himself,  and  counted  that  he  had  done  wisely  in  claiming 
liberty  for  himself.  Even  so  the  sinner  for  a  while  may  flatter  himself 
that  he  is  doing  well  at  a  distance  from  God ;  he  discovers  not  all  at 
once  his  misery  and  poverty :  for  the  world  has  its  attractions,  and  the 
flesh  its  pleasures ;  his  affections  are  not  all  at  once  laid  waste,  nor  the 
sources  of  natural  delight  drawn  dry  in  an  instant.  But  this  is  the  end 
whereunto  he  is  more  or  less  rapidly  hastening.  The  time  arrives  when 
he  has  come  to  an  end  of  all  the  satisfaction  and  joy  which  the  creature 
can  give  him — for  it  was  not  as  a  springing  fountain,  but  a  scanty  cis- 
tern— and  then  it  fares  with  him  as  with  the   prodigal :  "  lohen  he  had 

*  De  Divers.,  Senn.  8  :  Est  autem  interim  homo  sub  se,  cihm  proprise  satisfaciens 
voluntati,  necdum  tamen  possidetur  ii  vitiis  et  ptccatis.  Jam  hinc  vero  proficiscitur  ad 
regionem  longinquam,  qui  prius  quidem  separatus  crat,  sed  necdum  elongatus  k  patre. 

t  Cajetan :  Confidentia  in  omnibus  donis  natura;  et  gratia;  aninii  et  corporis,  est 
bonorum  congregatio. 

t  Augustine  :  Regio  longinqua  oblivio  Dei  est.  Bede  :  Non  regionibus  longc  est 
quisque  h.  Deo,  sed  aflectibus. 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON.  309 

spent  all,  there  arose  a  mighty  famine  in  that  land,  and  he  began  to  be  in 
want."*  He,  too,  begins  to  discover  that  there  is  a  great  spiritual  famine 
in  the  land  where  he  has  chosen  to  dwell, — a  famine  of  truth  and  love, 
and  of  all  whereby  the  soul  of  man  indeed  lives ;  he  begins  to  discover 
his  wretchedness  and  misery,-]-  and  that  it  is  an  evil  thing,  and  a  bitter, 
to  have  forsaken  the  Lord  his  God.ij:  (Jer.  ii.  19;  xvii.  5,6.)  In  the 
spiritual  world  there  need  be  no  outward  distresses  or  calamities,  though 
often  there  will  be,  bringing  on  this  sense  of  famine.  A  man's  outward 
possessions,  supposing  him  to  have  such,  may  stand  in  their  fulness,  may 
go  on  abounding  more  and  more,  all  his  external  helps  to  felicity  may 
remain ;  while  yet  in  the  true  riches  he  may  have  run  through  all,  and 
may  be  commencing  "to  be  in  want."  This  famine  sits  down,  an  un- 
bidden  guest,  at  rich  men's  tables,  finds  its  way  into  kings'  palaces.  In. 
these  palaces,  at  those  feasts,  the  immortal  soul  may  be  famishing,  yea, 
ready  to  "perish  with  hunger." 

When  we  see  portrayed  in  this  parable  the  history  of  the  great  apos- 
tacy  of  the  heathen  world  from  the  knowledge  and  worship  of  the  true 
God,  as  well  as  the  departure  of  a  single  soul,§  this  wasting  of  goods  will 

*  Or  rather  "  he  began  himself  to  be  in  want :"  the  famine  reached  even  to  him. 
The  Vulgate  has  not  missed  the  force  of  the  airos :  Et  ipse  ccepit  egere.  (See  Winer's 
Grammatik,  p.  142.) 

t  Ambrose  {Exp.  in  Luc,  1.  7,  c.  215)  :  Etenim  qui  recedit  a  verbo  Dei  esurit, 
quia  non  in  solo  pane  vivit  homo,  sed  in  omni  verbo  Dei  :  qui  recedit  k  fonte,  sittit: 
qui  recedit  i  thesauro,  eget :  qui  recedit  a.  sapientia,  hebetatur:  qui  recedit  ii  virtute, 
dissolvitur. 

X  Thus,  when  a  great  English  poet,  with  everything  that  fortune,  and  rank,  and 
genius  could  give  him, — and  who  had  laid  out  his  whole  life  for  pleasure  and  not  for 
duty, — yet  before  he  had  reached  half  the  allotted  period  of  man,  already  exclaimed. 
My  days  are  in  the  yellow  leaf, 

The  flowers,  the  fruits,  of  love  are  gone  ; 
The  worm,  the  canker,  and  the  grief 
Are  mine  alone — 
what  are  these  deeply  affecting  words,  but  the  confession  of  one,  who  having  spent  all, 
had  found  himself  in  want  1     Or  again,  the  prodigal's  misery,  his  sense  of  the  barren- 
ness of  sin,  find  a  yet  deeper  voice  : — 

The  fire  that  on  my  bosom  preys. 

Is  lone  as  some  volcanic  isle  ; 
No  torch  is  lighted  at  its  blaze, 
A  funeral  pile  ! 
§  We  are  not  in  this  early  part  of  the  parable  expressly  told,  but  from  ver.  30  we 
infer,  that  he  consumed  "  with  harlots"  the  living  which  he  had  gotten  from  his  father. 
This  too  suits  well,  when  we  see  here  the  history  of  the  world's  departure  from   God, 
since  in  the  deep  symbolical  language  of  Scripture  fornication  is  the  standing  image  of 
idolatry  ;  they  are,  in  fact,  ever  spoken  of  as  one  and  the  same  sin,  considered  now  in 
its  fleshly,  now  in  its  spiritual,  aspect.   (Jer.  iii.  ;  Ezek.  xvi.  xvii.)   And  as  much,  indeed, 


310  THE  PRODIGAL  SON. 

be  exactly  that  which  St.  Paul  describes,  Rom.  i.  19-23,  as  the  remain- 
ing part  of  the  chapter  will  exactly  answer  to  the  prodigal's  joining  him- 
self  to  the  citizen  of  the  far  country,  and  seeking  to  fill  his  belly  with  the 
swines'  husks.  The  great  famine  of  that  heathen  world  was  at  its  height 
when  the  Son  of  God  came  in  the  flesh  :  in  this  consisted  a  part,  though, 
of  course,  only  a  part,  of  the  fulness  of  time, — the  fitness  of  that  time, 
above  all  other,  for  his  appearing.  The  glory  of  the  old  world  was  fast 
fading  and  perishing.  All  childlike  faith  In  the  old  religions  had  depart- 
ed. They  were  creeds  outworn,  unable  any  longer  to  nourish,  ever  so 
little,  the  spirit  of  man.  The  Greek  philosophy  had  completed  its  possi- 
ble circle,  but  it  had  found  no  answer  to  the  doubts  and  questionings 
which  tormented  humanity.  "What  is  truth?"  this  was  the  question 
which  all  asked, — some,  indeed,  in  mockery,  some  in  despair, — some 
without  the  desire,  but  all  equally  without  the  expectation,  of  obtaining 
an  answer. 

When  in  this  famine,  the  prodigal  "  began  to  be  in  7vant,"  for  as  yet 
he  had  but  a  foretaste  of  his  coming  woe,  this,  no  doubt,  was  a  summons 
to  him  to  return  home.  But  as  yet  his  proud  heart  was  unsubdued,  his 
confiidence  in  his  own  resources  not  altogether  exhausted.  The  first 
judgments  of  God  do  not  always  tame,  but  the  stricken  sinner  says,  like 
Ephraim,  "  The  bricks  are  fallen  down,  but  we  will  build  with  hewn 
stone  ;  the  sycamores  are  cut  down,  but  we  will  change  them  into  ce- 
dars." (Isai.  ix.  10;  Jer.  v.  3;  Isai.  Ivii.  10;  Amos  iv.  6-10.)  It 
was,  we  may  suppose,  in  such  a  spirit  as  this  that,  "he  went  and  joined 
himself*  to  a  citizen  of  that  country," — "  fastened,"  or  "  pinned  himself 
upon  "  him,  as  Hammond  expresses  it,  hoping  to  repair  his  broken  for. 


is  implied  in  the  ^ajv  dcrwruf,  living  dissolutely,  of  ver.  13.  'Acwros,  from  a  and  aaj^w,  as 
one  who  thinks  he  need  not  spare, — that  he  never  will  come  to  an  end  of  what  he  has. 
Clemens  of  Alexandria  gives  it  a  passive  signification,  uaoiros  =  aawarof,  one  who  will 
not  be  spared,  who  is  far  from  salvation,  (T(o^£(r0at  ^n  Swajuvoi  =  perditus  of  the  Latins  ; 
so  Passow  :  heillos,  ohne  Rettung  verloren.  Cicero  has  latinized  the  word  (2)e  Fin., 
2,  8),  and  uses  it  of  those  given  to  prodigal  luxury  and  excess  at  the  table  :  but  it 
also  includes  the  other  main  lusts  of  the  flesh  ;  and  it  affirms  a  depth  of  moral  de- 
gradation, a  desperate  debauchery,  (dctorois  =  aiV;^paij,  Hesychius,)  which  it  may  be 
questionable  whether  our  translation  has  quite  reached.  See  Suicer,  s.  v.,  and  Dey- 
ling  {Obss.  Sac,  v.  3,  p.  435.) 

*  So  Unger:  cKoWiiOrj  contemtim,  se  obtrusit  ;  he  thrust  himself  upon, — as  in 
Latin,  haerere  or  adhaerere  is  often  used,  with  something  of  contempt,  of  an  inferior 
who  clings  to  some  superior,  through  whose  help  he  hopes  to  advance  his  fortunes, — and 
see  Suicer,  s.  v.  KoXAdo/im.  But  there  is  no  contempt  necessarily  involved  in  the 
word, — it  is  not  in  the  cleaving  itself,  but  in  the  unworthiness  of  the  person  to  whom 
he  cleaves,  that  the  contempt  lies :  in  proof  compare  Rom.  xii.  9,  with  1  Cor.  vi.  16. 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON.  3^1 

tunes  by  his  help,*  And  here,  no  doubt,  is  meant  to  be  set  forth  to  us  a 
deeper  depth  in  the  sinner's  downward  course ;  a  fall  within  a  fall, — a 
more  entire  and  self-conscious  yielding  of  himself  in  heart  and  will  to 
the  service  of  the  world.  St.  Bernard  f  understands  by  the  citizen  of 
the  far  country,  Satan  himself  or  one  of  his  angels.  "  That  citizen  I 
cannot  understand  as  other  than  one  of  the  malignant  spirits,  who  in  that 
they  sin  with  an  irremediable  obstinacy,  and  have  passed  into  a  perma- 
nent disposition  of  malice  and  wickedness,  are  no  longer  guests  and 
strangers,  but  citizens  and  abiders,  in  the  land  of  sin."  Yet  rather  I 
should  say  that  by  the  term  "  citizen  "  is  brought  out  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  prodigal  and  the  lord  to  whom  for  a  while  he  addicted  himself 
He  with  all  his  misery  was  not  a  ^^  citizen,"  but  a  stranger,  in  that  far 
land.  He  did  not  feel  himself  at  home,  nor  naturalize  himself  there. 
The  other  was  well  to  do  ;  the  famine  had  not  touched  him  ;  herein  how 
far  more  miserable  indeed,  though  he  know  it  not,  than  he  who  "  began 
to  be  in  want.''  For  there  is  hope  for  the  sinner  so  long  as  he  feels  him- 
self a  miserable  alien  in  the  land  of  sin  :  his  case  is  becoming  hopeless, 
when  he  has  made  himself  "a  citizen  "  there,  when  he  is  troubled  with 
no  longings  after  a  lost  paradise,  after  a  better  land  that  he  has  left  be- 
hind. But  how  shall  we  understand  his  joining  himself  to  the  citizen  of 
that  far  country  ?  The  sinner  sells  himself  to  the  world,  he  entangles 
himself  more  deeply  in  it.  Our  Lord  gives  us  a  hint  here  of  that  awful 
mystery  in  the  downward  progress  of  souls,  by  which  he  who  begins  by 
using  the  world  to  be  a  servant  to  minister  to  his  pleasures,  submits  in 
the  end  to  a  reversing  of  the  relationship  between  them,  so  that  the 
world  uses  him  as  its  drudge,  and  sin  as  its  slave.  He  becomes  cheap 
in  the  sight  of  that  very  world  for  the  sake  of  which  he  has  forfeited  all. 
Its  good  wine,  which  it  offered  him  at  the  first,  it  offers  him  no  more,  but 
now  that  he  has  well  drunk,  that  which  is  worse. 

It  was  small  help  that  the  young  man  found  from  the  new  master  on 
whom  he  had  thrust  himself.  Sinful  man  finds  no  mercy  from  his  fellow- 
sinner,  no  love,  no  pity.  "  All  thy  lovers  have  forsaken  thee,"  this  is 
the  doom  of  each  soul  that  breaks  faith  with  its  heavenly  bridegroom. 
(Cf.  Ezek.  xvi.  37  ;  xxiii.  22-25.)  This  new  master  cared  not  whether 
he  had  him  or  no — and  if  he  must  needs  engage  him,  who  so  crouches 
to  him  for  a  morsel  of  bread  (1  Sam.  ii.  36)  he  will  dismiss  him  out  of 
sight,  and  send  him  to  the  meanest  and  vilest  employment  which  he  has  ; 
"  He  sent  him  into  his  fields  to  feed  swine.''     We  might  easily  guess,  and 

*   Theophylact  :  TTpOKOXpa;  rj  KOKia, 

t  De  Divers.,  Serm.  8.  So  also  Cajetan :  Subjecit  se  totaliter  D«emoni,  qui  verfe 
est  civis  regionis  peccati. 


312  THE  PRODIGAL  SON. 

indeed  we  know,  how  exceedingly  vile  and  degrading,  and  even  accursed, 
this  employment  was  esteemed  in  the  eyes  of  a  Jew  ;*  so  that  misery 
would  seem  to  have  come  upon  him  to  the  uttermost.  And  now  "  he 
would  fain  have  Jilled  his  belly  with  the  husks -f  that  the  swine  did  eat ; 
and  no  man  gave  unto  him."  Shall  we  understand  that  he  Avas  reduced 
so  low  as  to  look  with  a  longing  eye  upon  these  swine's  husks,  but  that 
a  share  even  of  these  which  he  distributed  to  them,  was  withholden  from 
himself? — "  no  man  gave  unto  him  "  of  these  ; — so  the  passage  is  gene- 
rally taken.:}:  But  seeing  they  must  have  been  in  his  power,§  it  seems 
preferable  to  understand  that  in  his  unscrupulous  hunger  he  was  glad 
to  fill  himself  with  these  husks,  and  did  so,  no  man  giving  him  any  no- 
bler sustenance.  |1  With  these  he  would  fain  have  "Jilled  his  belly  ;^ 
— the  expression  is  chosen  of  design — all  he  could  hope  from  them  was 
just  this,  to  dull  his  gnawing  pain — not  that  he  should  with  them  truly 

*  See  Lightfoot's  Hor.  Heb.,  on  Matt.  viii.  30  ;  and  Gfrorer's  Urchristenthum, 
V.  1,  p.  115.  Herodotus  (1.  2,  c.  47)  describes  the  swineherds  as  the  only  persons 
who  were  excluded  from  the  temples  in  Egypt. 

t  These  Kepana  are  not  the  husks  or  pods  of  some  other  fruit,  but  themselves  the. 
fruit  of  the  carob  tree,  ((ftpartoyia.,)  of  which  there  is  a  good  account  in  Winer's  Real. 
WOrterbuch,  s.  v.  Johannis  Brodtbaum.  This  name  of  St  John's  bread  the  tree  de- 
rives from  the  tradition  that  the  Baptist  fed  upon  its  fruit  in  the  wilderness.  I  have 
seen  and  tasted  them  in  Calabria,  where  they  are  very  abundant,  and  being  sold  at  a 
very  low  price  are  sometimes  eaten  by  the  poorer  people,  but  are  mainly  used  for  the 
feeding  domestic  animals.  They  are  also  common  in  Spain,  and  still  more  so  on 
the  northern  coasts  of  Africa,  and  in  the  Levant.  They  are  in  shape  something  like 
a  bean-pod,  though  larger,  and  curved  more  into  the  form  of  a  sickle  ;  thence  called 
KcpiiTiovjOT  little  horn,  and  the  tree  sometimes  in  German,  Bockshornbaum.  They  have 
a  dark  hard  outside,  and  a  dull  sweet  taste,  hardly,  I  think,  justifying  Pliny's  prtEcZuZces 
siliquae.  The  shell  or  pod  alone  is  eaten  ;  wine  was  sometimes  expressed  from  it  in 
ancient  times  ;  Robinson  mentions  when  steeped  in  water  they  afford  a  pleasant  drink  : 
the  fruit  within  is  bitter  and  cast  aside.  Maldonatus  gives  an  accurate  account  of 
the  Kcpdrtov,  and  see  Pole's  Synopsis,  (in  loc.)  and  Rosenmuller's  Alte  und  Neue 
Morgenland,  v.  5,  p.  198, 

t  Thus  Luther  ;  Und  niemand  gab  sie  ihm.  Bernard  {De  Convers.,  c.  8) :  Meri- 
to  siliquas  'esuriit,  et  non  accepit,  qui  porcos  pascere  maluit,  quim  paternis  epulis 
satiari. 

§  Calvin  :  Significat  pras  fame  non  amplius  cogitasse  veteres  delicias,  sed  avide 
vorasse  siliquas:  neque  enim  cilm  porcis  ipse  daret  hoc  cibi  genus,  carere  potuit,  .  .  , 
Additur  ratio,  quia  nemo  illi  dahat,  nam  copula  in  causalem  particulam,  meo  judicio, 
resolvi  debet. 

II  Or  the  words  kqX  oUeXi  iH&ov  avrw  maybe  a  new  and  the  final  touch  in  the  picture 
of  his  misery,  and  express  generally  that  there  was  none  that  showed  any  pity  upon 
him. 

V  Tc))iaai  Tfjv  KotXiav.  Stella :  Hominem  non  satiant,  sed  ventrem  tantilm  gra- 
vant ;  and  Ambrose  (Exp.  in  Luc,  1.  7,  c.  217):  Cibus  .  .  .  quo  corpus  non  refi- 
citur  sed  impletur.     Augustine  ;  Pascebatur  de  siliquis,  non  satiabatur. 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON.  3I3 

satisfy  his  hunger,  for  the  food  of  beasts  could  not  appease  the  cravings 
of  man.  Thus  a  deepest  moral  truth  lies  under  the  words, — that  none 
but  God  can  satisfy  the  longing  of  an  immortal  soul, — that  as  the  heart 
was  made  for  him,  so  he  only  can  fill  it. 

The  whole  description  is  wonderful,  and  for  nothing  more  than  the 
evident  relation  in  which  his  punishment  stands  to  his  sin.  "  He  who 
would  not,  as  a  son,  be  treated  liberally  by  his  father,  is  compelled  to  be 
the  servant  and  bondslave  of  a  foreign  master, — he  who  would  not  be 
ruled  by  God,  is  compelled  to  serve  the  devil, — he  who  would  not  abide 
in  his  father's  royal  palace,  is  sent  to  the  field  among  hinds, — he  who 
would  not  dwell  among  brethren  and  princes,  is  obliged  to  be  the  servant 
and  companion  of  brutes, — he  who  would  not  feed  on  the  bread  (ft  angels, 
petitions  in  his  hunger  for  the  husks  of  the  swine."*  In  his  feeding  of  swine, 
what  a  picture  have  we  of  man  "  serving  divers  lusts  and  pleasures," — in 
whom  the  divine  is  totally  obscured, — the  bestial  merely  predominant. 
And  in  his  fruitless  attempt  to  fill  his  belly  with  the  husks,  what  a  picture, 
again,  of  man  seeking  through  the  unlimited  gratification  of  his  appetites,  to 
appease  the  fierce  hunger  of  his  soul.  But  in  vain,  for  still  "he  enlarges 
his  desire  as  hell,  and  is  as  death,  and  cannot  be  satisfied  :"  since  as  well 
might  one  hope  to  quench  a  fire  by  adding  fuel  to  it,  as  to  slake  desire 
by  gratifying  it.f  (Ezek.  xvi.  28,  29.)  And  the  further  misery  is  that 
the  power  of  sinful  gratifications  to  stay  that  hunger  even  for  the  moment, 
is  ever  diminishing, — the  pleasure  which  is  even  hoped  for  from  them 
still  growing  fainter,  and  yet  the  goad  behind,  urging  to  seek  that  plea- 
sure, still  becoming  fiercer, — the  sense  of  the  horrible  nature  of  the 
bondage  ever  increasing,  with  the  power  of  throwing  off"  that  bondage 
ever  diminishing. :j:  All  the  monstrous  luxuries  and  frantic  wicked- 
nesses which  we  read  of  in  the  later  Roman  history,  at  that  close  of  the 
world's  Pagan  epoch,  stand  there  like  the  last  despairing  effort  of  man 
to  fill  his  belly  with  the  husks. §     The  attempt  by  her  emperors  was 

*  Corn,  a  Lapide. 

t  Jerome  {Ad  Dam., Ep.  21, c.  13):  Nonpoterat,saturari  quia  semper  voluptasfamem 
sui  habet,  et  transacta  non  satiat :  and  Bernard,  though  elsewhere  he  has  affirmed  the 
other,  yet  brings  out  this  interpretation  also  on  its  ethical  side  (De  Convers.,  c.  14) : 
Neque  enim  parit  hanc  [satietatem]  copia  sed  contemptus.  Sic  fatui  filii  Adam, 
porcorum  vorando  siliquas,  non  esurientes  animas  sed  esuriem  ipsam  pascitis  anima- 
nim.     Sola  nimirum  hoc  edulio  inedia  vestra  nutritur,  sola  fames  alitur  cibo  innaturali. 

I  Cajetan  :  Quieto  siquidemdominio  jam  possidentes  Daemones  hominem,  invident 
illi  satietatem  appetit&s,  quam  tamen  procurabant  quosque  ilium  plene  sibi  subjecerunt. 
Compare  a  passage  from  the  Tabula  of  Cebes,  quoted  by  Mr.  Greswell.  (Exp.  of  the 
Par.,  V.  3,  p.  586.) 

§  The  explanation  which  Augustine  gives  is  not  virtually  different  from  this.  The- 
husks  he  explains ;  Seculares  doctrinje  steriles,  vanitate  resonantes  ;  such  as  had  been 

21 


314  THE  PRODIGAL  SON. 

carried  out  under  all  the  most  favourable  circumstances  of  wealth  and 
power,  for,  in  Solomon's  words,  "  what  can  the  man  do  that  cometh  after 
the  king  ?"  In  this  light  we  may  behold  the  incredibly  sumptuous 
feasts, — the  golden  palaces, — the  enormous  shows  and  spectacles, — and 
all  the  pomp  and  pride  of  life  carried  to  the  uttermost,* — the  sins  of  na- 
ture, and  the  sins  below  nature ;  while  yet  from  amidst  all  these  the 
voice  of  man's  misery  only  made  itself  the  louder  heard.  The  experi- 
ment carried  out  on  this  largest  scale,  only  caused  the  failure  to  be  more 
signal,  only  proved  the  more  plainly  that  of  the  food  of  beasts  there  could 
not  be  made  the  nourishment  of  men. 

It  might  be  here,  perhaps,  said,  that  the  picture  drawn  in  the  para- 
ble, if  it^be  applied  to  more  than  a  very  few  the  deepest  sunk  in  depra- 
vity, is  an  exaggeration  both  of  the  misery  and  also  of  the  wickedness 
even  of  those  who  have  turned  their  backs  upon  God ;  that,  in  the  most 
corrupted  times,  not  all,  and  in  more  moral  epochs  only  a  few  even  of 
these,  fall  so  low  in  wretchedness  and  guilt.  This  is  true,  yet  all  might 
thus  fall.  By  the  first  departure  from  God,  all  this  misery,  and  all  this 
sin,  are  rendered  possible — all  are  its  legitimate  results  ;  there  is  nothing 
to  hinder  them  from  following,  except  the  mercy  and  restraining  grace 
of  God,  who  does  not  suffer  sin,  in  all  cases,  to  bear  all  the  bitter  fruit 
which  it  might,  and  which  are  implicitly  contained  in  it.  In  the  pre- 
sent case,  it  is  suffered  to  bear  all  its  bitter  fruit :  we  have  one  who  has 
done  "  evil  with  both  hands  earnestly,"  and  debased  himself  even  unto 
hell ;  and  the  parable  would  be  incomplete  without  this,  it  would  not  be 
a  parable  for  all  sinners,  since  it  would  fail  to  show,  that  there  is  no 
extent  of  departure  from  God,  which  renders  a  return  to  him  impossi- 
ble. 

Hitherto  we  have  followed  the  sinner  step  by  step  in  a  career,  which 
is  ever  carrying  him  further  and  further  from  his  God.  Another  task 
remains — to  trace  the  steps  of  his  return,  from  the  first  beginnings  of 
repentance  to  his  full  reinvestment  in  all  the  rights  and  privileges  of  a 
son.  For  though  he  has  forsaken  his  God,  he  has  not  been  forsaken  by 
him — no  not  even  in  that  far  land  ;  for  the  misery  which  has  fallen  upon 
him  there  is  indeed  an  expression  of  God's  anger  against  sin,  but  at  the 
same  time  of  his  love  to  the  sinner.  He  hedges  up  his  way  with  thorns, 
that  he  may  not  find  his  paths ;  (Hos.  ii.  6  ;)  he  makes  his  sin  bitter  to 
him,  that  he  may  leave  it.     In  this  way  God  pursues  his  fugitives,  sum- 


to  himself  once  his  own  Manichaean  figments.  Compare  Jerome  {Ad  Dam.,  Ep.  21, 
c.  13),  and  H.  de  Sto  Victore  :  Sordida  figmenta  poetarum,  et  diversis  erroribus  pollu- 
ta  dogmata  philosophorum. 

*  See,  for  instance,  Suetonius,  Caligula,  c.  19,  37. 


^ 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON.  33^5 

moning  them  back  in  that  only  language  which  now  they  will  under- 
stand.* He  allows  the  world  to  make  its  bondage  hard  to  them,  that 
they  may  know  the  difference  between  his  service,  and  the  service  of 
the  kings  of  the  countries,  (2  Chron.  xii.  8,)  that  those  whom  he  is  about 
to  deliver  may  cry  to  him  by  reason  of  the  bitter  bondage,  and  in  that 
cry  give  him  something  that  he  may  take  hold  of.  (Deut.  iv.  29-31  ; 
2  Chron.  xxxiii.  11-13.)  Here  we  have  one  upon  whom  this  severe 
but  loving  discipline  is  not  wasted.f  Presently  "  he  came  to  himself  ."% 
How  full  of  consolation  for  man,  how  deeply  significant  are  these  words, 
"  Ae  came  to  himself  ^^ — so  that  to  come  to  one's  self  and  to  come  to  God, 
are  one  and  the  same  thing.  He  being  the  true  ground  of  our  beino-, 
when  we  find  ourselves  we  find  him ;  or  rather,  because  we  have  found 
him,  we  find  ourselves  also.§  It  is  not  then  the  man  living  in  union 
with  God  who  is  raised  above  the  true  condition  of  humanity,  but  the 
man  not  so  living,  who  has  fallen  out  of  and  fallen  below  that  condi- 
tion. 

When  he  thus  "  came  to  himself,  he  said,  How  many  hired  servants 
of  my  father'' s  have  bread  enough  and  to  spare,  and  I  perish  with  hunger." 
This  too  is  a  touch  of  the  deepest  nature ;  for  there  is  nothing  that  so 
causes  the  sinner  to  feel  the  discord  which  he  has  introduced  into  his 
innermost  being,  as  to  compare  himself  with  all  things  around  and  be- 
neath him.  He  sees  the  happy  animals  undisturbed  with  his  longings, 
unable  to  stain  themselves  with  his  sins  ;  he  beholds  all  nature  calm  and 
at  rest,  and  fulfilling  in  law  and  in  order  the  purposes  for  which  it  was 
ordained.  Every  where,  peace  and  joy — he  only  condemned  the  mean- 
while 

"  To  be  a  jarring  and  dissonant  thing 
Amid  this  general  dance  and  minstrelsy." 

He  sees  also  many  of  his  fellow-men,  who  without  any  very  lofty  views 
concerning  living  to  the  glory  of  God, — without  any  very  lively  affec- 
tions towards  him,  do  yet  find  their  satisfaction  in  the  discharge  of  their 
daily  duties,  who,  though  they  do  his  work  rather  in  the  spirit  of  ser- 
vants than  of  sons,  rather  looking  to  their  hire  than  out  of  the  free  im- 
pulse of  love,  are  yet  not  without  their  reward.  It  is  true,  they  may 
not  have  the  highest  joy  of  his  salvation,  or  consolations  of  his  grace, 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  they  are  far  from  the  misery  and  destitution  into 

*  Augustine,  Enarr.  in  Ps.  cxxxviii.  3,  4. 

t  Augustine  :  Divinae  misericordiaE  severa  disciplina. 

t  How  remarkable  a  parallel  the  words  of  Seneca  {Ep.  53)  supply :  Quare  vitia 
sua  nemo  confitetur  ?  quia  etiam  nunc  in  illis  est.  Somnium  narrare,  vigilaniis  est, 
et  vitia  sua  confiteri,  sanitatis  indicium. 

§  See  Augustine,  Serm.  96,  c.  2. 


316  THE  PRODIGAL  SON. 

which  he  has  sunk.  They  at  least  have  bread  enough  and  to  spare: 
while  he  is  tormented  with  the  fierce  hunger  of  desires  which  are  ever 
craving,  but  which  can  never  be  satisfied.* 

Comparing  his  state  with  theirs,  what  does  the  prodigal  determine 
now  ?  How  many,  even  at  this  point,  do  not  determine  as  he  does. 
They  betake  them  to  some  other  citizen  of  that  far  country,  who  pro- 
mises them  a  little  better  fare  or  less  contemptuous  treatment.  Or  it 
may  be  they  learn  to  dress  their  husks,  so  that  they  shall  look  like  hu- 
man food,  and  they  then  deny  that  they  are  the  fodder  of  swine.  Or 
glorying  in  their  shame,  and  wallowing  in  the  same  sty  with  the  beasts 
they  feed,  they  proclaim  that  there  was  never  intended  to  be  any  differ- 
ence between  the  food  of  men  and  of  swine.  But  it  is  otherwise  with  him. 
"  I  will  arise. y  We  may  picture  him  to  ourselves  as  having  sat  long 
upon  the  ground,  revolving  the  extreme  misery  of  his  condition — for  the 
earth  becomes  the  natural  throne  of  the  utterly  desolate.  (Job  ii.  8,  13.) 
But  now  he  gathers  up  anew  his  prostrate  energies,  as  a  better  hope 
wakens  in  his  bosom  ;  "  Why  sit  I  here  among  the  swine  ?  I  will 
arise  and  go  to  my  father."  These  words  the  Pelagians  of  old  ad- 
duced,  in  proof  that  man  could  turn  -to  God  in  his  own  strength, :{: — 
that  he  needed  not  a  drawing  from  above,  that  the  good  thought  was 
his  own ;  just  as  the  (self-styled)  Unitarians  of  modern  times  find 
in  the  circumstances  of  the  prodigal's  return,  a  proof  that  the  sin- 
ner's repentance  alone  is  sufficient  to  reconcile  him  with  his  God, — 
that  he  needs  not  a  Mediator  and  a  sacrifice.  But  these  conclusions  are 
sufficiently  guarded  against  by  innumerable  clearest  declarations,  the 
first  by  such  as  John  vi.  44  ;  the  second  by  such  passages  as  Heb.  x.  19- 
22  •  nor  are  we  to  expect  that  every  passage  in  Scripture  is  to  contain 
the  whole  circle  of  Christian  doctrine,  but  the  different  portions  of  truths 
being  gathered  by  the  Church  out  of  the  different  parts  of  Scripture,  are 
by  her  presented  to  her  children  in  their  due  proportions  and  entire 
completeness. 

Returning  to  that  father,  he  "  will  say  unto  him,  Father," — for  as 

*  This,  in  the  main,  is  the  interpretation  of  these  words  by  the  Fathers.  See  Je- 
rome, {Ad  Dam.,  Ep.  21,  c.  14,)  Ambrose,  {Exp.  in  Luc,  1.  7,  c.  220,)  and  Bernard 
{De  Divers.  Serm.  8) :  Quis  enim  peccati  consuetudine  obligatus,  non  se  felicem  repu- 
taret,  si  datum  esset  ei  esse  tanquam  unum  ex  his,  quos  in  seculo  tepidos  videt,  vi- 
ventes  sine  crimine,  minimi  tamen  quaerentes  quae  sursum  sunt,  sed  quae  super  terram  ? 
In  proof  that  this  distinction  between  the  filial  and  the  servile  work  was  clearly  recog- 
nized among  the  Jews,  see  Schoettgen's  Hor.  Heb.,  v.  1,  pp.  2G0,  532. 

t  Augustine:  Surgam,  dixit — sederat  enim. 

t  But  Augustine  says  in  reply  {Ep.  18S) :  Quam  cogitationem  bonam  quando 
haberet,  nisi  et  ipsam  illi  in  occulto  Pater  misericordissimus  inspirSsset  1  Cf.  Enarr. 
in  Pa.  Ixxvii.  39. 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON.  3^7 

that  relation  was  one  which  his  obedience  has  not  constituted,  so  his 
disobedience  could  not  annul.  And  what  is  it  that  gives  the  sinner  now 
a  sure  ground  of  confidence,  that  returning  to  God  he  shall  not  be  re- 
pelled or  cast  out  ?  The  adoption  of  sonship,  which  he  received  in 
Christ  Jesus  at  his  baptism,  and  his  faith  that  the  gifts  and  calling  of 
God  are  on  his  part  without  repentance  or  recall.  For  the  recollection 
of  his  baptism  is  not  to  him  as  a  menacing  angel,  keeping  with  a  fiery 
sword  the  gates  of  that  Paradise  which  he  has  forfeited,  and  to  which  he 
now  vainly  desires  admission  again ;  but  there  he  finds  consolation  and 
strength  ; — he  too,  wretched  and  degraded  though  he  be,  may  yet  take  that 
dearest  name  of  Father  on  his  lips,  and  claim  anew  his  admission  into 
the  household  of  faith,  on  the  ground  that  he  was  once  made  a  member 
thereof,  and  that  his  privileges  abide  for  him  still  in  their  full  force,  how- 
ever he  may  have  chosen  to  remain  in  guilty  ignorance  of  them  for  so 
long.  "  I  have  sinned  against  heaven  and  hefore  thee  :"  he  recognizes 
his  offence  to  have  been  committed  not  merely  against  man,  but  against 
heaven,  or  against  God  :  he  shows  his  repentance  to  have  been  divinely 
wrought,  a  work  of  the  Spirit,  in  that  he  acknowledges  his  sin  in  its 
root,  as  a  transgression  of  the  divine  law,  as  exceedingly  sinful,  being 
wrought  against  God.  Thus  David,  when  he  exclaims,  "  Against  thee, 
thee  only  have  I  sinned;"  while  yet  his  offences  had  been  against  the 
second  table.  For  we  may  injure  ourselves  by  our  evil,  we  may  wrong 
our  neighbour,  but  strictly  speaking,  we  can  sin  only  against  God  ;  and 
the  recognition  of  our  evil  as  first  and  chiefly  an  offence  against  him,  is 
of  the  essence  of  all  true  repentance,  and  distinguishes  it  broadly  from 
many  other  kinds  of  sorrow  which  may  follow  on  evil  deeds.  When  we 
come  to  give  these  words  their  higher  application,  the  two  acknowledg- 
ments, "  I  have  sinned  against  heaven,  and  before  thee,''  merge  into  one, 
"  I  have  sinned  against  thee,  my  Father  in  heaven."  Not  here  alone, 
but  throughout  all  Scripture,  this  willingness  to  confess  is  ever  noted  as 
a  sign  of  a  true  repentance  begun,  even  as  the  sinner's  refusal  to  hum- 
ble himself  in  confession  before  God,  is  the  sure  note  of  a  continued  ob- 
duracy. (2  Sam.  xii.  13;  Job  ix.  20;  xxxi.  33;  xxxiii.  27;  Prov. 
xxviii.  13;  Jer.  ii.  35;  xvi.  10;  Hos.  xiv.  2;  1  John  i.  9,  10.)  In 
Augustine's  words,  "  He  shows  himself  worthy,  in  that  he  confesses 
himself  unworthy."* 

*  And  again  :  Esto  accusator  tuus,  et  ille  erit  indultor  tuus ;  cLEnarr.  in  Ps.  xxxi. 
5.  Tertullian,  in  his  treatise  De  PaeniteiUid  (c.  9,  10),  has  many  useful  remarks,  in 
connexion  with  this  parable,  on  the  benefit  of  unreserved  confession  :  Tantum  relevat 
confessio  delictorum  quanti!im  dissimulatio  exaggerat.  Confessio  enim  satisfactionis 
consilium  est,  dissimulatio,  contumaciae.  .  .  In  quantum  non  peperceris  tibi,  in  tantum 
tibi  Deus,  crede,  parcel.     The  whole  treatise  breathes  a  far  different  spirit  from  that 


318  THE  PRODIGAL  SON. 

With  this  deep  feeling  of  his  unworthiness,  he  will  confess  that  he 
has  justly  forfeited  all  which  once  was  his  :  "  I  am  no  more  worthy  to  he 
called  thy  son."  This  is  well,  and  a  confession  such  as  this  belongs  to 
the  essence  of  all  true  repentance.  But  the  words  that  follow,*  "  Make 
me  as  one  of  thy  hired  servants,"  are  these  the  words  of  returning  spirit- 
ual health,  so  that  we  should  desire  to  meet  them  in  each  normal  repent- 
ance, or  not  ?  We  shall  find  that  at  a  later  period  he  drops  them,  (ver, 
21,)  and  shall  then  have  something  more  to  say  about  them.  A  scholar 
of  St.  Bernard's  here  exclaims:  "  Keep,  O  happy  sinner,  keep  watch- 
fully and  carefully  this  thy  most  just  feeling  of  humility  and  devotion  : 
by  which  thou  mayest  ever  esteem  the  same  of  thyself  in  humility, 
of  the  Lord  in  goodness.  Than  it  there  is  nothing  greater  in  the  gifts 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  nothing  more  precious  in  the  treasures  of  God,  no- 
thing more  holy  among  all  graces,  nothing  more  wholesome  among 
[all]  sacraments.  Keep,  I  say,  if  thou  wilt  thyself  be  kept,  the 
humility  of  that  speech  and  feeling,  with  which  thou  confessest  to 
thy  Father,  and  sayest,  '  Father,  1  am  no  more  worthy  to  be  call- 
ed thy  son.'  For  humility  is  of  all  graces  the  chiefest,  even  while  it 
does  not  know  itself  to  be  a  grace  at  all.  From  it  they  begin,  by  it 
they  advance,  in  it  they  are  consummated,  through  it  they  are  pre- 
served."! But  it  is  wholly  against  the  spirit  of  this  parable,  when  he 
exhorts  him  still  to  persist  in  taking  the  place  of  a  servant,  even  after 
his  father  shall  have  bidden  him  to  resume  the  position  of  a  son.  This 
is  that  false  humility  of  which  we  find  so  much,  and  w^hich  often  is  so 
mightily  extolled,  in  monkery,  but  of  which  we  find  nothing  in  this  pa- 
rable, nor  elsewhere  in  the  Scriptures.  It  is  true  humility  when  bid- 
den to  go  up  higher,  to  go.  Tt  was  true  humility  in  Peter  to  suflfer  the 
Lord  to  wash  his  feet,  as  it  would  have  been  false  humility,  as  well  as 
disobedience,  to  resist  longer  than  he  did :  it  was  true  humility  of  the 
prodigal,  when  his  father  would  have  it  so,  to  accept  at  once  the  place 
of  a  son. 

There  is  no  tarrying  now  ;  what  he  has  determined  to  do,  at  once 
he  does  j  being  about  to  prove  how  much  larger  are  the  riches  of  grace, 

in  which  the  other  above  referred  to,  De  Pudicitid,  is  written  ;  and  yet  is  most  use- 
ful, as  showing  us  how  far  more  serious  and  earnest  a  thing  repentance  was  accounted 
in  the  early  Church,  than  it  is  commonly  now,  how  much  more  it  linked  itself  with 
outward  self-denials  and  humiliations. 

*  Cajetan :  Non  audebo  petere  redintegrationem  in  statum  filii,  in  pristina  dona 
grandia  ;  sed  petam  dona  incipientium,  qui  amore  aeterna:  mercedis  serviunt  Deo. 

t  Guerricus,  in  a  singularly  beautiful  sermon  in  the  Bened.  edit,  of  St.  Bernard, 
V.  2,  p.  986  :  Humilitas  siquidem  omnium  virtutum  est  maxima,  cCim  tamen  virlutem 
se  esse  nesciat ;  ab  ipsa,  incipiunt,  per  ipsam  proficiunt,  in  ipsil  consummantur,  per 
ipsam  conservantur. 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON.  319 

which  are  laid  up  with  his  father,  than  he  had  dared  to  hope ;  "  He 
arose,  and  came  to  Ms  father  ;  but  when  he  was  yet  a  great  way  off,  his 
father  saw  him,  and  had  compassion,  and  ran  and  fell  on  his  neck,  (Gen. 
xlv.  14  ;  xlvi.  29  ;  Job  xi.  9,)  and  kissed  hitn."  The  evidences  of  the 
father's  love  are  described  with  a  touching  minuteness  ;  he  does  not  wait 
for  the  poor  returning  wanderer  till  he  has  come  all  the  way,  but  him- 
self  hastens  forward  to  meet  him  ;  he  does  not  wear  at  first  an  aspect  of 
severity,  only  after  a  season  to  be  relaxed  or  laid  aside,  but  at  once  wel- 
comes him  with  the  kiss,  which  is  something  more  than  an  evidence  of 
affection,  being  the  significant,  and  in  the  East  well  understood,  pledge 
of  reconciliation  and  peace.  (Gen.  xxxiii.  4  ;  2  Sam.  xiv.  33 ;  Ps. 
ii.  12.)  It  is  thus  the  Lord  draws  nigh  unto  them  that  draw  nigh  unto 
him,*  (Jam.  iv,  8,)  he  sees  them  "while  they  are  "yet  a  great  way  off." 
It  was  he  who  put  within  them  even  the  first  weak  motions  toward  good  ; 
— and  as  his  grace  prevented  them,  so  also  it  meets  them  ; — he  listens 
to  the  first  faint  sighings  of  their  hearts  after  him,  for  it  was  he  that  first 
awoke  those  sighings  there.  (Ps.  x.  17.)  And  though  they  may  be 
"yet  a  great  way  off,"  though  there  may  be  very  much  of  ignorance  in 
them  still,  far  too  slight  a  view  of  the  evil  of  their  sin,  or  of  the  holiness 
of  the  God  with  whom  they  have  to  deal,  yet  he  meets  them,  notwith- 
standing, with  the  evidences  of  his  mercy  and  reconciled  love.  Neither 
makes  he  them  first  to  go  through  a  dreary  appi'enticeship  of  servile  fear 
at  a  distance  from  him,  but  at  once  embraces  them  in  the  arms  of  his 
love,  giving  them  at  this  first  moment  strong  consolations,  perhaps 
stronger  and  more  abounding  than  afterwards,  when  they  are  settled  in 
their  Christian  course,  they  will  oftentimes  receive.  And  this  he  does, 
because  such  they  need  at  this  moment,  to  assure  them  that  notwith- 
standing their  moral  loathsomeness  and  defilement  and  misery,  they  are 
accepted  in  Christ  Jesus,  to  convince  them  of  that  which  it  is  so  hard 
for  the  sinner  to  believe,  which  it  is  indeed  the  great  work  of  faith  to 
realize,  that  God  has  put  away  their  sin,  and  is  pacified  toward  them. 

But  the  returning  son,  though  thus  graciously  received,  though  his 
sin  is  not  mentioned  against  him  at  all,  yet  not  the  less  makes  the  con- 
fession  which  he  had  determined  in  his  heart,  when  the  purpose  of  re- 
turning was  first  conceived.  And  this  was  fitting  ;  for  though  God  may 
forgive,  man  is  not  therefore  to  forget.  Nor  should  we  fail  to  note  that 
it  is  after,  and  not  before,  the  kiss  of  reconciliation,  that  this  confession 
finds  place ;  for  the  more  the  sinner  knows  and  tastes  of  the  love  of  God, 

*  Thus  there  is  an  Eastern  proverb,  If  man  draws  near  to  God  an  inch,  God  will 
draw  near  to  him  an  ell ;  or  as  Von  Hammer  (Fundg.  d.  Orients,  v.  4,  p.  91)  gives  it : 
Wer  sich  mir  eine  Spanne  weit  naht,  dem  eile  ich  eine  Elle  lang  entgegen, 
Und  wer  mir  gehend  entgegen  komtt,  dem  eile  ich  in  Spriingen  zu. 


320  THE  PRODIGAL  SON. 

the  more  he  grieves  ever  to  have  sinned  against  that  love.  It  is  under 
the  genial  rays  of  this  kindly  love,  that  the  heart,  which  was  before 
bound  up  as  by  a  deadly  frost,  begins  to  thaw  and  to  melt  and  loosen, 
and  the  waters  of  repentance  to  flow  freely  forth.  The  knowledge  of 
God's  love  in  Christ  is  the  cruse  of  salt  which  alone  can  turn  the  bitter 
and  barren-making  streams  of  remorse  into  the  healing  waters  of  repent- 
ance. And  thus  the  truest  and  best  repentance  follows,  and  does  not 
precede,  the  sense  of  forgiveness ;  and  thus  too  will  repentance  be  a 
thing  of  the  whole  life  long,  for  every  new  insight  into  that  forgiving 
love,  is  as  a  new  reason  why  we  should  mourn  that  we  ever  sinned 
against  it.  It  is  a  mistake  to  affirm  that  men,  those  I  mean  in  whom 
there  is  a  real  spiritual  work  going  forward,  will  lay  aside  their  repent- 
ance, so  soon  as  they  are  convinced  of  the  forgiveness  of  their  sins,  and 
that  therefore, — since  repentance,  deep,  earnest,  long-continued,  self- 
mortifying  repentance,  is  a  good  thing,  as  indeed  it  is, — the  longer  men 
can  be  kept  in  suspense  concerning  their  forgiveness  the  better,  as  in 
this  way  a  deeper  foundation  of  repentance  will  be  laid.  This  is  surely 
a  wrong  view  of  the  relations  in  which  repentance  and  forgiveness  stand 
to  each  other ;  and  their  true  relation  is  rather  opened  to  us  in  such 
passages  as  Ezek.  xxxvi.  31,  where  the  Lord  says,  "  Then,'"  (and  for 
what  that  then  means,  see  ver.  24-30  :  then,  after  I  have  cleansed  you, — 
after  I  have  given  you  a  new  heart, — after  I  have  heaped  all  my  rich- 
est blessings  upon  you,  then  under  the  sense  of  these)  "shall  ye  remem- 
ber your  own  evil  ways,  and  your  doings  that  were  not  good,  and  shall 
loathe  yourselves  in  your  own  sight  for  your  iniquities  and  your  abom- 
inations." Compare  Ezek.  xvi.  60-63,  where  the  Lord  declares  he  has 
established  his  covenant  with  Judah  for  the  very  purpose  "  that  thou 
mayest  remember  and  be  confounded,  and  never  open  thy  mouth  any 
more  because  of  thy  shame,  lohen  I  am  pacified  toward  thee  for  all  that 
tliou  hast  done."  The  )^ounger  son,  while  he  has  the  clearest  evidence 
.  that  his  father  is  pacified  toward  him,  does  not  the  less  confess  his 
(shame.  He  does  not  indeed  say  all  that  he  had  once  intended, — he  does 
not  say,  "Make  me  as  one  of  thy  hired  servants:"  for  this  was  the  one 
troubled  element  of  his  repentance,  this  purpose  of  shrinking  back  from 
his  father's  love,  and  from  the  free  grace  which  would  restore  to  him 
all :  and  in  his  dropping  of  these  words,  in  his  willingness  to  be  blest  by 
his  father  to  the  uttermost,  if  such  is  his  father's  pleasure,  there  is  beau- 
tiful evidence  that  the  grace  which  he  has  already  received  he  has  not 
received  in  vain.  Bengel  thinks  it  possible  that  his  father  cut  him 
short,  and  so  took  these  words  out  of  his  mouth,  but  has  also  suggested 
the  truer  explanation.* 

*  Bengel :  Vel  quod  ex  obvii  patris  comitate  accensa  filialis  (iJucia  omnem  ser- 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON.  321 

And  now  the  father  declared  plainly  in  act,  that  he  meant  to  give  him 
a  place  and  a  name  in  his  house  once  more  ;  for  he  "  said  to  his  servants, 
Bring  forth  the  best  robe  and  put  it  on  him,  and  put  a  ring  on  his  hand 
and  shoes  on  his  feet,""  these  all  being  the  ornaments,  not  of  the  slave, 
but  of  the  free  ;*  all,  therefore,  speaking  of  restoration  to  his  former  dig- 
nity, and  his  lost  privileges.  Or  if  we  cannot  suppose  the  Roman  cus- 
toms which  accompanied  the  lifting  up  of  a  slave  to  a  freeman's  rank,  to 
have  been  familiarly  known  in  Palestine,  or  to  be  here  alluded  to,  yet  the 
giving  of  the  robe  and  ring  were  ever  accounted,  in  the  East,  among  the 
highest  tokens  of  favour  and  honour;  (Gen.  xli.  42;  1  Mace.  vi.  15;) 
so  that,  in  fact,  these  words  would  still  testify  of  highest  blessings  and 
chiefest  favours  in  store  for  him  who  had  most  justly  confessed  that  he 
had  forfeited  his  claim  to  the  least  of  these. 

Few  interpreters,  even  among  those  who  commonly  are  most  opposed 
to  the  giving  a  spiritual  meaning  to  the  minuter  circumstances  of  a  par- 
able, have  been  able  to  resist  the  temptation  of  doing  so  here  ;  and  there 
is  a  pretty  general  agreement  concerning  the  manner  in  which  these  cir- 
cumstances shall  be  explained.  There  is  a  question,  however,  whether 
"  the  first  robe  "  is  to  be  understood  as  the  first  in  worth,  as  our  transla- 
tion has  it,  "fAe  best  robe,"  the  most  excellent  that  was  laid  up  in  the 
house, — or  "  the  former  \  robe,''  that  which  he  wore  when  of  old  he  walk- 
ed a  son  in  his  father's  house,  and  which  has  been  kept  for  him,  and  was 
now  to  be  restoi*ed.  The  difference  is  not  important,  though  our  trans- 
lation is  clearly  the  right;  nor  whether  we  say  that  by  the  giving  of  this 
robe  is  signified  the  imputation  to  him  of  the  righteousness  of  Christ,:}:  or 


vilem  sensum  absorberet,  vel  quod  patris  comitas  sermonem  filii  abrumperet.  So  Au- 
gustine {Quasi.  Evang.,  1.  2,  qu.  33)  :  Ciim  enim  panem  non  haberet,  vel  mercenarius 
esse  cupiebat  ;  quod  post  osculum  patris  generosissimfe  jam  dedignatur. 

*  Thus  Tertullian  {De  Resur.  Cam.,  c.  57)  speaking  of  the  manumitted  slave : 
Vestis  albcB  nitore,  et  aurei  annuli  honore,  et  patroni  nomine  ac  tribu  mensaque 
honoratur.  Grotius :  AuktvXiov  apud  Romanos  ingenuitatis,  apud  Orientes  populos 
dignitatis  eximia;  signum,  aut  etiam  opulentiae.  (Jac.  ii.  2.)  He  might  have  added 
Gen.  xli.  42.  Cf.  Elsner,  in  the  Biblioth.  Brern.,  v.  3,  p.  906 ;  and  for  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  ring,  the  Diet,  of  Gr.  and  Rom.  Antt.,  s.  v.  Rings,  p.  824. 

t  The  Vulgate :  Stolam  primam.  Tertullian  :  Vestem  pristinam,  priorem.  The- 
ojjhylact :  T^^  oroX^i'  r^v  a.p')(a.iav, — but  rather,  Stolam  illam  praestantissimam  ;  as 
Eutliymius:  rhv  TijtioiTaTriv.  Cf.  Gen.  xxvii.  15.  LXX.  Thv  aTo\r]v  rnv  KaXfiv.  There 
need  no  quotations  to  prove  how  often  Trpcorot  is  used  in  this  sense  of  the  chiefest,  the 
most  excellent ;  (see  1  Chron.  xxvii.  33  ;  Ezek.  xxvii.  22,  LXX.)  Passov^t,  s.  v.,  der 
vornehmste,  angesehenste.  The  oroXij  is  the  vestis  talaris,  the  long  and  wide  upper 
garment  of  the  higher  classes.     (Mark  xxii.  38.) 

t  Tertullian  :  Indumentum  Spiritiis  Sancti.  Jerome  :  Stolam  quae  in  alia  para- 
bola, indumentum  dicitur  nuptiale.    Augustine  :  Stola  prima  est  dignitas  quam  per- 


322  THE  PRODIGAL  SON. 

the  restoration  of  sanctity  to  his  soul.  If  we  see  in  it  his  reintegration  in 
his  baptismal  privileges,  then  both  will  be  implied.  They  who  bring 
forth  the  robe  have  been  generally  interpreted  as  the  ministers  of  recon- 
ciliation ;  and  if  we  may  imagine  them  first  to  have  removed  from 
him,  as  they  would  naturally  have  done,  the  tattered  garments,  the  poor 
swineherd's  rags  which  were  hanging  about  him,  Zech.  iii.  4,  will  then 
suggest  to  us  an  interesting  parallel.  Those  who  stood  before  the  Lord 
there,  would  answer  to  the  servants  here, — and  what  they  did  for  Joshua 
there,  removing  his  filthy  garments  from  him,  and  clothing  him  with  a 
change  of  raiment,  and  setting  a  fair  mitre  on  his  head,  the  same  would 
the  servants  do  here  for  the  son,  with  the  difference  only  that  instead  of 
the  mitre,  the  appropriate  adornment  there  of  the  high  priest,  the  ring 
and  the  shoes  are  here  mentioned ;  and  the  symbolic  act  has  in  each 
case,  no  doubt,  the  same  signification ;  what  that  is,  the  Lord  there  ex- 
pressly declares — "  Behold,  I  have  caused  thine  iniquity  to  pass  from 
thee."  These  words,  brought  to  bear  on  the  passage  before  us,  make  it, 
I  think,  more  probable  that  by  this  bringing  out  of  the  best  robe,  and  put- 
ting it  upon  him,  is  especially  signified  that  act  of  God,  which,  consider- 
ed on  its  negative  side,  is  a  release  from  condemnation,  a  causing  the 
sinner's  iniquity  to  pass  from  him, — on  its  positive  side,  is  an  imputation 
to  him  of  the  merits  and  righteousness  of  Christ. 

This  explanation,  for  other  reasons  also,  is  preferable,  since  we  have 
the  gift  or  restoration  of  the  Spirit  indicated  in  the  ring  with  which  the 
returning  wanderer  is  also  adorned.  It  is  well  known,  and  despite  Pli- 
ny's* denial  is  unquestionable,  that  in  the  East,  as  with  us,  the  ring  was 
also  often  a  seal,f  (Esth.  iii.  10,  12;  Jer.  xxii.  24,)  which  naturally 
brings  here  to  our  minds  such  passages  as  Ephes.  i.  13,  14 ;  2  Cor.  i. 
22,  in  which  a  sealing  by  God's  Spirit  is  spoken  of,  whereby  they  that 
have  it  are  assured,  as  by  an  earnest,  of  a  larger  inheritance  one  day 
coming  to  them,  and  which  witnesses  with  their  spirits  that  they  are  the 
sons  of  God.  (Gal.  iv.  6  ;  Rom.  viii.  23  ;  2  Cor.  v.  5.)     The  ring,  too, 


didit  Adam  ;  and  in  another  place,  spes  immortalitatis  in  baptismo.  Theophylact : 
To  cvivfi.a  Trii  dipOaptriai.  Guemcus  ;  Sanctlficationem  Spiritfts,  qua  baptizatus  induitur 
et  pcenitens  reinduitur. 

*  H.  N.,  1.  33,  c.  6.  Speaking  of  the  seal-ring,  he  says ;  Non  signat  Oriens  q^jit 
iEgyptus  etiam  nunc,  litteris  contenta  solis.  The  later  discoveries  have  shown  this  as 
false  concerning  Egypt  as  the  East ;  see  moreover  Herod.,  1.  2,  c.  38. 

t  Clem.  Alex.  (Potter's  ed.,  p.  1017) ;  Tinftavrpov  fiaaiXiKov  Koi  a<ppayi6a  Qdav^  and 
presently  after,  a-i!oa(^payiofta  i6^r,i.  The  fragment  whence  these  words  are  taken,  is 
interesting  in  many  respects ; — and  among  others  in  this,  that  the  author,  whether 
Clement  or  another,  affirms  of  the  prodigal  that  he  had  not  merely  wasted  the  natural 
gifts  of  God,  but  especially  abused  rdv  tov  PazTiaftaTOi  I'l^noiici/iov  kuXuv. 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON.  323 

may  be  the  pledge  of  betrothal  :*  "And  I  will  betroth  thee  unto  me  for 
ever  :  yea,  I  will  betroth  thee  unto  me  in  righteousness,  and  in  judgment, 
and  in  loving-kindness,  and  in  mercies,  and  I  will  even  betroth  thee  unto 
me  in  faithfulness;  and  thou  shalt  know  the  Lord."  (Hos.  ii.  19,  20. f) 
The  shoes  also  are  given  him,  to  which  answers  the  promise,  "  I  will 
strengthen  them  in  the  Lord,  and  they  shall  walk  up  and  down  in  his 
name."  (Zech.  x.  12.)  The  penitent  shall  be  equipped  for  holy  obedi. 
ence,:}:  having  his  "  feet  shod  with  the  preparation  of  the  Gospel  of 
peace."  (Ephes.  vi.  15.)  No  strength  shall  be  wanting  to  him.  (Deut. 
xxxiii.  25.)  When  it  is  added,  "Bring  hither  the  failed  calf^  and  kill 
it,"  it  would  create  a  confusion  of  images,  again  to  go  back  to  the  sacri- 
fice of  Christ,  which  was  implicitly  contained  in  the  first  image,  that  of 
the  giving  of  the  robe,  and  which,  moreover,  is  not  a  consequence  of  the 
sinner's  return,  as  the  killing  of  the  fatted  calf  is  the  consequence  of  the 
prodigal's,  but  the  ground  which  renders  that  return  possible.  |1  Nor 
should  I  here  see,  (with  Tertullian  IF  and  Clement  of  Alexandria,)  special 
allusion  to  the  Eucharist,  but  more  generally  to  the  festal  joy  and  rejoic- 
ing which  is  in  heaven  at  the  sinner's  return,  and  no  less  in  the  Church 
on  earth,  and  in  his  own  heart  also.** 

As  in  the  preceding  parables  the  shepherd  summons  his  friends,  (ver. 

*  Ambrose  (De  Panit.,  1.  2,  c.  3):  Det  annulum  in  manu  ejus,  quod  est  fidei 
pignus,  et  Sancti  Spiritfts  signaculum. 

t  The  whole  chapter  affords  deeply  interesting  parallels :  ver.  5  (the  latter  part)  an- 
swering to  ver.  11,  12  here ;  ver.  C-13  there  to  13-19  here  ;  and  ver.  14-23  to  20-24. 

t  Guerricus:  Calceamenta,  quibus  ad  calcanda  serpentuni  venena  munitur,  vel  ad 
evangelizandum  praeparatur.  Grotius,  quoting  Ephes.  vi.  15,  adds,  Nimirum  poeniten- 
tibus  in  gratiam  receptis  etiam  hoc  Deus  concedit,  ut  apti  sint  aliis  aut  voce  aut  certfe 
exemplo  docendis,  and'quotes  well  Ps.  li.  13,  in  this  view.  And  see  Clemens  Alex. 
(Potter's  ed.,  p.  1018)  for  much  that  is  beautiful  and  something  that  is  fanciful  on  these 
shoes, — though  the  vKoSfinara  were  probably  rather  sandals  than  shoes,  the  latter  being 
in  very  rare  use  in  the  East.  The  word  is  used  interchangably  with  cavSiXta,  by  the 
LXX.,  though  there  is  a  distinction.  (See  Tittmann's  Synonyms,  and  ihe  Diet,  of  Gr. 
and  Eom.  Antt.,  s.  v.  Sandalium,  p.  839.)  Much  luxury  was  often  displayed  among 
the  wealthy  in  this  article  of  dress,  (see  Judith  xvi.  9  ;  Ezek.  xvi.  10  ;  Cant.  vii.  1,)  so 
that  we  can  easily  understand  why  they  should  have  been  especially  mentioned  ;  not 
to  say  that  slaves  usually  went  discalceati. 

§  Tdi/  n6a')(^ov  Tdv  (rirevuv.  Cf.  Judg.  vi.  25.  (LXX.)  ;  Tertullian  :  Vitulum  praeopi- 
mum, — that  set  by  for  some  special  occasion  of  festal  rejoicing.  In  the  Geneva  version, 
"  that  fatted  calf" 

II  Augustine  evades  this  difficulty :  Tunc  enim  cuique  [Christus]  occiditur  ciim 
credit  occisum. 

IT   De  Pudic,  c.  9. 

**  Arndt  {De  Vera  Christ.,  1.  2,  c.  8) :  Hoc  conviviuminnuit  gaudium  angelorum, 
sive  vivificantem,  latificantem,  et  coronantem  misericordiam  quam  Ps.  Ixiii.  5  ;  Jes. 
Ixvi.  13,  depingit. 


324  THE  PRODIGAL  SON. 

6,)  and  the  woman  her  female  neighbours,  (ver.  9,)  so  here  the  house- 
holder his  servants,  to  be  sharers  in  his  joy.  For  this  is  the  very  nature 
of  true  joy — that  it  runs  over,  that  it  desires  to  impart  itself:  and  if  this 
be  true  of  the  joy  on  earth,  how  much  more  of  the  yet  holier  joy  in  hea- 
ven.* And  summoning  them  to  rejoice,  he  declares  to  them  the  ground 
of  the  joy  in  which  they  are  invited  to  share.  In  an  earthly  household, 
we  might  naturally  conclude  some  to  have  made  part  of  the  household 
now,  who  had  not  made  part  at  the  time  of  the  young  man's  departure. 
To  them,  therefore,  it  was  needful  to  declare  that  this  wanderer,  this 
beggar  as  it  seemed,  was  no  other  than  a  son  of  the  house,  one  who 
should  henceforth  be  by  them  treated  and  regarded  as  such.  The  fa- 
ther solemnly  reinstates  him,  before  them  all,  in  the  honours  of  a  son. 
"  This  my  son,"  he  says — and  then,  comparing  the  present  with  the  past, 
"was  dead,  and  is  alive  again'^ — ''dead,''  for  the  state  of  sin  is  ever  con- 
sidered  in  Scripture  as  a  state  of  death — (1  John  iii.  14;  1  Tim.  v.  6; 
Ephes.  ii.  1) — "  he  was  lost,  and  is  found," — compare  1  Pet.  ii.  25  :  "  Ye 
were  as  sheep  going  astray,  but  are  now  returned  unto  the  shepherd  and 
bishop  of  your  souls;"  and  while  thus  the  lost  was  found,  and  the  dead 
alive,  "  they  began  to  he  merry." 

Here  this  parable,  like  the  two  preceding,  might  have  ended.  But 
our  Lord  at  ver.  11  saying  "  two  sons,"  had  promised  something  more; 
and  complete  as  is  this  first  part  within  itself,  yet  is  it  also  to  form  part 
of  another  and  more  complex  whole,  and  to  derive  new  beauty  from  the 
contrast  which  is  thus  brought  out  between  the  large  heart  of  God  and 
the  narrow  grudging  heart  of  man.  For  the  purposes  of  this  contrast 
the  elder  brother,  who  as  yet  has  been  named  to  us,  and  no  more,  is  now 
brought  upon  the  scene.  He,  while  the  house  is  ringing  with  the  festal 
rejoicing,  returns  from  "  the  field "  where,  no  doubt,  he  had  been,  as 
usual,  laboriously  occupied  ;  so  much  is  implied  in  the  words;  and  it  is 
not  without  good  reason  that  this  intimation  is  given  us.  For  thus  we 
are  informed  that  while  the  other  had  been  wasting  time  and  means  and 
strength, — his  whole  portion  of  goods, — in  idle  and  sinful  pleasures 
abroad,  he  had  been  engaged  at  home,  on  his  father's  ground,  in  pursuits 
of  useful  industry.  This  is  not  a  justification,  but  yet  is  a  tacit  expla- 
nation, of  the  complaints  which  he  presently  thinks  himself  entitled  to 
make.  As  he  "  drew  nigh  to  the  house,  he  heard  music  and  dancing  " 
It  would  be  alien  to  the  manners  and  feelings  of  the  East,  to  suppose  the 
guests  themselves  to  have  been  engaged  in  these  diversions  :  they  would 


•  Origen  {Horn.  23  in  Lev.)  on  the  words  "  3Iy  feasts,"  which  there  occurs,  asks  : 
Habet  ergo  Deus  dies  festossuos?  Habet.  Est  enim  ei  magna  festivitas  humana 
sal  us. 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON.  325 

but  be  listeners  aijd  spectators,  the  singers  and  dancers  being  hired  for 
such  occasions.  Surprised  at  these  unaccustomed  sounds,  "  he  called  one 
of  the  servants  and  asked  what  these  things  meant  J^  Let  us  note  here  with 
what  delicate  touches  the  Uiigenial  character  of  the  man  is  indicated 
already.  He  does  not  go  in  ;  he  does  not  take  for  granted  that  when  his 
father  makes  a  feast,  there  is  matter  worthy  of  making  merry  about. 
But,  as  if  already  determined  to  mislike  what  is  going  forward,  he  pre- 
fers to  remain  without,  and  to  learn  from  a  servant  the  occasion  of  the 
joy,  or  rather,  as  he  puts  it,  "  what  these  things  meant,^'  demanding  an 
explanation,  as  if  they  required  it.  And  then  the  tidings  that  his  father 
had  received  his  brother  "  safe  and  soundj"*  with  the  thought  of  his 
father's  joy,  his  brother's  safety,  instead  of  stirring  up  any  gladness  in 
his  heart,  move  him  rather  to  displeasure  ;  "  he  was  angry, ^^  and  in  place 
of  rushing  to  that  brother's  arms,  "  would  not  go  in." 

Nor  even  when  his  father  so  far  bore  with  him  as  to  come  out  and 
entreat  him,  would  he  lay  aside  his  displeasure,  but  loudly  complained 
of  the  unfairness  with  which  he  was  treated — the  bounty  which  was  be- 
stowed  upon  his  brother's  misconduct :  "  Lo  !  these  many  years  do  I 
serve  thee,  neither  transgressed  I  at  any  time  thy  commandment,  and  yet 
thou  never  gavest  me  a  kid,  that  I  might  make  merry  with  my  friends. "-\ 
And  then  he  invidiously  compares  the  father's  conduct  to  his  brother; 
"  This  thy  son,'"  he  says  not,  my  brother, — "  which  hath  devoured  thy  liv- 
ing," again  invidiously,  for  in  a  sense  it  was  his  own — "  with  harlots," 
very  probably,  yet  only  a  presumption  upon  his  part — "  as  soon  as  he  toas 
come,"  he  says  not,  ivas  returned,^  as  of  one  who  had  now  at  length  re- 
sumed his  own  place,  but  speaks  of  him  as  a  stranger — upon  the  first 
moment  of  his  arrival,  and  after  years,  not  of  duty,  but  disobedience — 
"  thou  hast  killed  for  him,"  not  a  kid  merely,  but  the  choicest  calf  in  the 
stall.     What  would  he  have  said,  if  he  had  known  all,  and  seen  him 

*  How  nice  is  the  observance  of  all  the  lesser  proprieties  of  the  narration.  The 
father,  in  the  midst  of  all  his  natural  affection,  is  yet  full  of  the  moral  significance  of 
his  son's  return — that  he  has  come  back  another  person  from  what  he  was  when  he 
went,  or  while  he  tarried  in  that  far  land  ;  he  sees  into  the  deep  of  his  joy,  that  he  is 
receiving  him  now  indeed  a  son,  once  dead  but  now  alive,  once  lost  to  him  and  to  God, 
but  now  found  alike  by  both.  But  the  servant  confines  himself  to  the  more  external 
features  of  the  case,  to  the  fact,  that  after  all  he  has  gone  through  of  excess  and  hard- 
ship, his  father  has  yet  received  him  "  safe  and  sound."  Even  if  he  could  enter  deeper 
into  the  matter,  yet  with  a  suitable  discretion  he  confines  himself  to  that  which  falls 
plainly  under  his  and  every  one's  eye. 

+  Jerome  (Ad  Dam.,  Ep.  21)  finding  an  emphasis  in  these  last  words,  "  with  my 
friends,"  asks  of  him :  Potest  esse  tibi  aliqua  jucunditas  nisi  patre  tecum  celebrante 
convivium  ?     Cf.  Bernard,  In  Cant.,  Serm.  14,  4. 

X  This  is  one  of  Bengel's  fine  and  delicate  notices :  Venit,  dicit,  ut  de  alieno  lo- 
quens :  non,  rediit. 


326  THE  PRODIGAL  SON. 

arrayed  in  the  best  robe,  and  with  all  his  other  adornments,  when  this 
which  alone  he  mentions,  as  it  is  all  which  he  has  learned  from  his  infor- 
mant,  so  moves  his  indignation  ? 

It  is  too  joyful  an  occasion  for  the  father  to  take  the  just  exception 
which  he  might  at  the  tone  and  temper  of  this  remonstrance.  There 
shall  not  be,  if  he  can  help  it,  a  cloud  upon  any  brow,  and  instead  of 
answering  with  aught  of  severity,  he  expostulates  with  the  malcontent, 
would  have  him  see  the  unreasonableness  of  his  complaint — nor  does  he 
fail  to  warn  him  that  he  is  now,  in  fact,  falling  into  the  very  sin  of  his 
brother,  when  he  said,  "  Give  me  the  portion  of  goods  thatfalleth  to  me." 
He  is  feeling  as  though  he  did  not  truly  possess  what  he  possessed  with 
his  father, — as  though  he  must  separate  and  divide  something  off  from 
his  father's  stock,  before  he  could  call  it  truly  his  own.  The  father's 
answer  is  a  warning  against  this  evil,  which  lay  at  the  root  of  the  elder 
brother's  speech,  though  it  had  spoken  out  more  plainly  in  the  younger's, 
the  same  which  spoke  out  most  plainly  of  all  in  the  words  of  the  wicked 
husbandmen,  "  This  is  the  heir :  let  us  kill  him,  that  the  inheritance 
may  be  ours."  "  S071,  thou  art  ever  with  me,  andall  that  I  have  is  thine  ;" 
and  then  he  makes  him  see  the  unloving  spirit  out  of  which  his  discon- 
tent proceeded  ;  "  It  was  meet  that  we  should  make  merry  and  he  glad  ;  for 
this  thy  brother,"  (not  merely  "  ?ny  son,"  as  thou  hast  ungraciously  put 
it,  but  "  thy  brother,"  kinned  to  thee,  and  to  whom  therefore  kindness  is 
due) — he  "  was  dead,  and  is  alive  again  ;*  was  lost,  and  is  found." 

What  success  the  father's  expostulations  met,  we  are  not  told. 
Whether  we  shall  assume  them  to  have  been  successful  or  not  will,  in 
fact,  be  mainly  determined  by  the  interpretation  which  we  give  to  this 
concluding  portion  of  the  parable.  Those  who  see  in  the  younger 
brother  the  Gentile,  and  therefore  in  the  elder  the  Jew,f  certainly  find 
this  portion  of  it  encumbered  with  fewer  difficulties  than  those  who  deny 

*  ScHOETTGEN,  Hor.  Heb.  V.  1,  p.  877. 

t  Thus  Augustine  (QucBSt.  Evang.,  1.  2,  qu.  33) :  The  elder  brother  was  in  the 
field,  that  is,  the  Jew  was  occupied  labore  servilis  operis :  returning  he  heard  music  and 
dancing,  scil.  spiritu  plenos  vocibus  consonis  Evangelium  praedicare.  He  inquires  of 
the  prophets,  what  mean  these  festivals  in  the  Church,  in  which  he  bears  no  part :  they 
tell  of  the  calling  of  the  Gentiles ;  but  he  is  displeased,  and  will  not  enter.  A 
time  however  is  coming,  so  Augustine  continues,  after  the  fulness  of  the  Gentiles  has 
come  in,  when  the  father  will  come  out  and  entreat  him,  to  the  end  that  all  Israel  may 
be  saved  ;  for  by  this  coming  out  of  the  father,  he  understands  the  manifest  vocation  of 
the  Jews  in  the  last  times.  Here  he  must  needs  be  in  error :  for  however  we  may 
accept  the  elder  brother  as  a  portrait  of  the  Jews  as  they  were  in  the  days  of  Christ's 
earthly  life,  yet  we  cannot  imagine  his  contumacy  and  self-righteousness  manifesting 
itself  in  them,  when  the  Lord  hereafter  shall  be  successfully  dealing  with  them  for  their 
conversion,  and  when  "  they  shall  look  on  him  whom  they  have  pierced,  and  mourn  for 
him  as  one  that  is  in  bitterness  for  his  first-bom." 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON.  327 

that  its  primary  purpose  can  be  to  set  forth  their  history,  and  their  rela- 
tions  to  one  another  and  to  God.     As  in  the  interpretation  which  I  have 
here  sought  to  establish,  the  correctness  of  such  application,  as  the  pri- 
mary at  least,  has  been  denied,  it  will  be  needful  to  look  elsewhere  for  a 
solution  of  the  difficulties,  which  are  indeed  the  same  which  beset  us  in 
the  parable  of  the  Labourers  in   the  Vineyard.       They  resolve    them- 
selves into  this  single  one, — Is  Iheir  righteousness,   whom  the  elder  bro- 
ther represents,  real  or  not  ?     If  real,  how  can  this  be  reconciled  with 
his  contumacy  towards   his   father,   and  his  unloving  spirit   towards  his 
brother  ?*     For  does  the  true  believer  accuse  God  of  unrighteousness 
in  his  dealings  with  men  ?  does  he  grudge,  and  not  rather  rejoice,  when 
one  who  has  departed  more  widely,  it  may  be,  than  himself,  is  brought 
home  to  the  fold  of  God  1     How  again  does  the  supposition  that  his 
righteousness  was   real,  agree  with  the  aim  of  this  part  of  the  parable, 
which  is  directed  against  the   Pharisees,  whose  righteousness,   for  the 
most  part,  was  not  such,  but  feigned  and  hypocritical  ?     But  on  the  other 
side,  if  it  is  not  real,  how  is  this  reconcilable  with  the  course  of  the 
story,  according  to  which  the  elder  brother  had  remained  ever  in  his 
father's  house,  or  with  his  uncontradicted  assertion  concerning  his  own 
continued  obedience,  or  with  the  meed  of  approbation  and  assurances  of 
favour  which  he  receives  from  his   father's  lips  ?     Each  determination 
of  the  question  is  embarrassed  with  difficulties — and  that  certainly  with 
considerable,  though  perhaps  not  with  the  greatest,  which  is  come  to  by 
Jerome,")"  by  Theophylact,  and  by  others,  namely,  that  by  the  elder  son 
the  Pharisees  are  signified,  whose   righteousness  was  feigned  and  hypo- 
critical ; — that  his  assertions  concerning  his  own  continued  obedience 
are  suffered  to  pass  uncontradicted,  because,  even  granting  them  to  be 
true,  the  case  would  not  be  altered — the  father  arguing  with  him  e  con- 
cesso  ;:}:  "  Be  it  so,  that  is  not  the  subject  now  in  hand  ; — allowing  your 
obedience  to  have  been  without  interruption,  your  works  always  to  have 
been  well-pleasing  in  my  sight,  yet  ought  you  in  love  to  rejoice  that 
your  brother  has  returned  to  us  once  more,  and  to  be  well-pleased  at  this 
exuberant  joy  and  gladness  with  which  he  is  welcomed  home." 

*  Jerome's  reply  to  Damasus  {Ep.  21),  which  has  been  more  than  once  referred  to, 
is  very  remarkable,  as  showing  how  the  difficulties  which  press  upon  this  part  of  the 
parable,  were  felt  quite  as  strongly  in  the  Church  in  his  time  as  now.  It  was  just  this 
question  which  Damasus  had  asked :  Nunquid  personae  justi  tarn  immanis  invidia  pote- 
rit  coaptari?  And  Theophylact  calls  the  question  about  the  elder  son,  to  7!o)\v9pi\\nTov 
^rJTrjua. 

t  Christ,  he  says,  paints  the  Pharisees,  non  quales  erant,  sed  quales  esse  debuerant. 
Theophylact  calls  them,  KaO'  vTroOeatu  JiVaioi. 

t  Jerome:  Non  confirmavit  vera  esse  quffi  dixerat  filius,  sed  irascentem  alia,  rati ; 
one  compescuit. 


328  THE  PRODIGAL  SON. 

But  there  seems  a  possible  middle  course,  which  shall  escape  the 
embarrassments  which  undoubtedly  perplex  this  as  well  as  the  opposite 
scheme  of  interpretation — that  we  see  in  him,  or  in  those  whom  he  rep- 
resents, a  low,  but  not  altogether  false  form  of  legal  righteousness.  He 
is  one  who  has  been  kept  by  the  law  from  gross  offences — he  has  been 
occupied,  though  in  a  servile  *  spirit,  in  the  works  of  that  law.  So, 
no  doubt,  had  been  many  of  the  Pharisees  :  many  of  them  hypocrites — 
but  also  many  of  them  sincerely,  though  in  much  blindness  of  heart, 
following  after  righteousness,  (Rom.  x.  1,  2,) — a  righteousness  indeed  of 
a  low  sort,j'  in  the  strivings  after  which,  while  those  were  mostly  exter- 
nal, they  did  not  attain  to  any  deep  self-acquaintance,  any  such  know- 
ledge  of  the  plague  of  their  own  hearts  as  should  render  them  mild  and 
merciful  to  others,  any  such  insight  into  the  breadth  of  that  law  which 
they  professed  to  keep,  as  should  thoroughly  abase  them  before  God. 
Such  may  have  been  some  of  the  murmurers  here — persons  not  utterly 
to  be  rejected,  nor  the  good  in  them  to  be  utterly  denied,  but  who  had 
need  rather  to  be  shown  what  was  faulty,  deficient,  narrow,  and  loveless 
in  their  religion  ; — to  be  invited  to  renounce  their  servile  for  a  filial 
spirit,  and  to  enter  into  the  nobler  liberties  of  that  Church  and  kingdom 
which  Christ  was  establishing  upon  earth.  And  in  this  sense  we  must 
then  understand  the  father's  invitation  to  the  elder  son  to  come  in.  Hith- 
erto he  had  been  labouring  "  in  thejield,"^  but  now  he  is  invited  to  a 
festival.  They  whose  work  for  God  had  hitherto  been  servile,  the  hard 
taskwork  of  the  law,  are  invited  now  to  enter  into  the  joy  of  the  Lord, 
the  freedom  of  the  Spirit. §  This  part  of  the  parable  will  then  be  as 
much  a  preaching  of  the  Gospel  of  the  kingdom  to  the  legalist,  as  the 
earlier  part  of  it  had  been  to  the  gross  sinner, — as  love  to  the  one  spoke 
there,  so  love  to  the  other  here. 

The  elder  son's  reply  to  the  father's  invitation,  (ver.  29,  30,)  and 
especially  those  words.  "  yet  thou  never gavest  me  a  kid,'''  show  too  plainly 
that  he  understands  not  the  nature  of  that  kingdom  to  which  he  is  invited. 
He  is  looking  for  certain  definite  rewards  for  his  obedience,  to  the  get- 


*  I  cannot,  however,  press  the  word  6ov\nw  (ver.  29)  into  service  here,  as  Bengel 
does,  whose  note  upon  it  is, — Confessio  servitutls.  There  is  no  confession  of  a  servile 
mind,  no  abnegation  of  a  state  of  filial  adoption,  at  Acts  xx.  19  ;  1  Thess.  i.  9,  nor  in 
many  passages  where  ^ovXrfco  is  used, — any  more  than  when  Paul  calls  himself  a  ser- 
vant (JoCXof)  of  Jesus  Christ. 

t  Salmeron:  Intelligamus  verosjustos,  sed  mediocres. 

X  Ambrose  :  Terrenis  operibus  occupatus,  ignorans  quae  sunt  Spiritfls  Dei.  But 
Augustine  (Enarr.  inPs.  cxxxviii.)  rather  more  favourably:  Significat  sanctos  in  lege 
facientcs  opera  et  praecepta  legis. 

§  Augustine :  Ad  perfruitonem  potioris  atque  jocundioris  exultationis  invitat. 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON.  329 

ting  something yVom  God,  instead  of  possessing  all  things  in  God.*  In- 
stead of  feeling  it  his  true  reward,  that  he  had  been  ever  with  his  father, 
he  rather  would  plead  this  as  establishing  his  claim  to  some  other  re- 
ward.|  In  the  father's  reply,  "  Son,  thou  art  ever  with  me,  and  all  thai  I 
have  is  thine  "  we  must  be  careful  that  we  place  the  emphasis  on  the 
right  word,  for  without  this  we  shall  entirely  miss  the  meaning.  It  is 
not,  "Son  thou  art  ever  with  me,"  as  though  the  contrast  was  drawn 
between  him  and  the  younger  son  who  had  so  long  not  been  with  his  fa- 
ther ;  but  we  should  read  rather,  "  Son,  thou  art  ever  with  me,"  setting 
the  emphasis  on  the  last  words.  "  What  need  to  talk  of  other  friends  ? 
thou  art  ever  with  a  better  than  them  all,  with  myself.  Why  shouldest 
thou  have  expected  a  kid,  when  all  that  I  have  is  thine."  To  make  the 
first  clause  of  the  sentence  an  honourable  recognition  of  his  past  obedi- 
ence, or  the  second  a  promise  that  he  "shall  inherit  all  things,"  is  an 
entire  missinsf  and  marring:  of  the  whole.  Rather  in  the  first  words  lies 
the  keenest,  though  at  the  same  time  the  most  loving,  rebuke  ;  "  Am  not 
I  to  thee  more  than  all  besides  ?"  in  the  second  the  most  earnest 
warning ;  "  What  is  mine  is  thine,  if  only  thou  wilt  so  regard  it ;  what 
can  I  do  for  thee,  if  thy  fellowship  in  my  things  fails  to  make  thee  feel 
rich  ?"  and  how  wonderfully  do  these  last  words  declare  to  us  the  true- 
nature  of  the  rewards  of  the  kingdom  :  "  All  that  I  have  is  thine  ;"  the- 
elder  son  no  doubt  had  thought  that  what  was  given  to  his  brother  was 
taken  from  him ;  but  in  the  free  kingdom  of  love  one  has  not  less,  be- 
cause another  has  more  ;  but  all  is  possessed  by  each.  The  fountain  of 
God's  grace  is  not  as  a  little  scanty  spring  in  the  desert,  round  which 
thirsty  travellers  need  to  strive  and  struggle,  muddying  the  waters  with 
their  feet,  pushing  one  another  away,  lest  those  waters  be  drawn  dry  by 
others  before  they  come  to  partake  of  them  themselves,  but  a  mighty 
inexhaustible  river,  on  the  banks  of  which  all  may  stand,  and  of  which 
none  need  grudge  lest  if  others  drink  largely  and  freely,  there  will  not 
enough  remain  for  themselves.  To  each  of  his  true  servants  and  chil- 
dren the  Lord  says,  as  the  father  did  to  his  elder  son,  "  All  that  I  have 
is  thine  I'^j^  if  any  then  is  straitened  and  counts  that  he  has  not  enough, 
he  is  straitened,  as  is  the  elder  son  here,  not  in  God,  but  in  himself,  in 
his  own  narrow  and  grudging  heart. 

There  is  abundant  reason  why  nothing  should  be  said  of  the  issue  of 

•  Augustine:  Non  dicit  pater,  Omnia  possides,  sed,  Omnia  mea  tua  sunt. 

t  He  should  have  felt,  in  Bernard's  words :  Ipse  retributor,  ipse  retributio  nostra, 
n€C  aliud  jam  quJim  ipsum  expectamus  ab  ipso. 

t  Augustine,  on  these  words,  says :  Sic  enim  perfectis  et  purgatis  ac  jam  immor- 
tailibus  fiiiis  habentur  omnia,  ut  sint  omnium  singula,  et  omnia  singulorum  :  ut  eninii 
cupiditas  nihil  sine  angustili,  ita  nihil  cum  augustia  caritas  tenet. 

22 


330  THE  PRODIGAL  SON. 

the  father's  expostulations  with  his  discontented  son.  That  could  not 
yet  be  told,  even  as  it  was  yet  uncertain  whether  the  scribes  and  Phar- 
isees might  not  also  be  won  to  repentance,  which  indeed,  though  of  an- 
other kind  and  for  other  sins,  they  needed  quite  as  much  as  the  publi- 
cans and  harlots.  The  Lord  not  distinctly  declaring  that  the  elder  son 
sullenly  refused  to  the  last  to  enter  in,  or  tliat  he  was  finally  excluded 
for  his  contumacy,  intimated  to  these,  that  as  yet  the  kingdom  of  God 
was  not  closed  against  them — that  they  too,  as  well  as  the  publicans 
and  sinners,  were  invited  and  summoned  to  leave  their  low,  poor,  and 
formal  service,  "  the  elements  of  the  world,"  (Gal.  iv.  3,)  and  to  enter 
into  the  glorious  liberties  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ — to  be  present  at  that 
spiritual  festival  wherein  he  should  manifest  his  glory,  changing  the 
weak  and  watery  elements  of  that  old  dispensation  into  the  generous  and 
;gladdening  wine  of  the  new.     (John  ii.  1-11.) 

That,  it  is  true,  of  which  we  have  here  only  an  uncertain  intimation, 
the  refusing,  and  on  these  grounds,  to  go  in,  was  fearfully  fulfilled  and 
■on  the  largest  scale,  when  the  Jews  in  the  apostolic  times  refused  to  take 
part  in  the  great  festival  of  reconciliation,  with  which  the  Gentile  world's 
incoming  into  the  kingdom  was  being  celebrated.  How  may  we  read 
;all  through  the  Acts,  as  especially  xiii.  45  ;  xiv.  19  ;  xvii.  5, 13  ;  xviii. 
12,  a  commentary  on  this  statement, — He  would  not  go  in,  because  his 
^brother  was  received  so  freely  with  music  and  with  dancing.  If  he  had 
■teen  submitted  first  to  a  painful  apprenticeship  of  the  law,  if  he  too  had 
^been  sent  to  work  in  the  field,  it  might  have  been  another  thing.  (Acts 
:xv.  1.)  But  that  he  should  be  thus  made  free  of  the  kingdom  of  God, 
he  brouf^ht  into  the  festival  at  once — this  was  more  than  they  could  bear. 
J^umbers  stayed  openly  and  sullenly  without.  Others,  as  the  Ebioniles, 
only  pretended  to  go  in,  or  went  in  under  a  mistaken  supposition  that 
it  should  be  as  in  their  narrow  hearts  they  desired,  and  discovering 
their  error,  presently  withdrew  themselves  again.*  At  the  same  time 
we  Gentiles  must  not  forget  that  the  whole  matter  will  be  reversed  at 
the  end  of  the  present  dispensation,  and  that  we  shall  be  in  danger  then 
of  playing  the  part  of  the  elder  brother,  and  shall  do  so,  if  we  grudge  at 
the  largeness  of  the  grace  bestowed  upon  the  Jew,  who  is  now  the 
•prodigal  feeding  upon  husks  far  away  from  his  Father's  house. f 

*  Augustine  {Serin.  Inedd.)  Irascitur  frater  major  .  .  .  Stomachati  sunt  Judsei 
•venire  gentes  de  tanto  compendio,  nullis  impositis  oneribus  legis,  non  dolore  circum- 
cisionis  carnalis,  in  peccato  accipere  baptismum  salutarem. 

t  Cajetan's  view  of  the  elder  brother  and  his  anger  is  ver^^ interesting,  and  I  am 
not  aware  that  any  interpreter,  except  indeed  Jerome,  and  he  Irat  slightly,  has  brought 
it  forward.  He  speaks  first  of  the  joy  and  consolation  which  th(S^enitent  sinner  often 
-finds  at  his  first  return  unto  God  ; — these  are  set  forth  by  the  musiji  and  dancing, — for 


THE  UNJUST  STEWARD.  33^ 


PARABLE  XXV. 


THE    UNJUST    STEWARD. 

Luke  xvi.  1-9. 

This  parable,  whereof  no  one,  who  has  seriously  considered  it,  can  un- 
derrate the  difficulties, — difficulties  which  multiply  rather  than  disap- 
pear the  closer  the  parable  is  searched  into, — which  Cajetan  found  so 
great  that  he  gave  up  the  matter  in  despair,  affirming  a  solution  impos- 
sible,— has  been  the  subject  of  manifold,  and  those  the  most  opposite, 
interpretations.  I  cannot  doubt  however  that  many  interpreters  have, 
so  to  speak,  "  overrun  their  game,"  and  that  we  have  here  a  parable  of 
Christian  prudence,  Christ  exhorting  us,,if  I  may  so  say,  to  use  the  world 
and  the  world's  goods  in  a  manner  against  itself,  and  for  God.     I  shall 

him  all  the  glories  of  the  Gospel  have  the  freshness  of  novelty,  and,  for  a  while,  an 
overpowering  gladness,  which  they  cannot  have  for  him  who  has  ever  continued  in  the 
ways  of  the  Lord.  The  joy  of  the  latter  has  indeed  been  infinitely  greater  than  this 
one  burst  of  gladness,  but  it  has  been  spread  over  a  far  larger  space  of  time  : — so  that 
seeing  the  other's  exultation,  he  may  be  tempted  for  a  moment  to  ask,  with  a  transient 
feeling  of  discontent,  why  to  him  also  is  not  given  this  burst  of  exulting  joy  ?  why  for 
him  the  fatted  calf  has  been  never  slain  ? — But  the  answer  is,  because  he  has  been  ever 
with  his  father,  because  his  father's  possessions  are,  and  have  been  always,  his.  His 
joy  therefore  is  soberer  and  more  solid, — not  the  suddenly  swelling  mountain  cataract, 
but  the  deep,  though  smooth  and  silent,  river :  and  what  is  given  to  the  other,  is  given 
to  him  just  because  he  is  a  beginner.  And  Cajetan  concludes  his  very  interesting  ex- 
planation of  the  whole  parable  with  these  words :  Adverte  hie,  prudens  lector,  Deum 
quandoque  noviter  poenitentes  afficere  magna,  consolatione  interni  gaudii,  donee  fir- 
mentur  in  vi&,  Dei ;  .  .  haec  autem  non  sunt  majoris  perfectionis  fructus,  sed  deliciae 
quaedam  seu  blanditiae  ccelestis  Patris,  quae  perfectioribus  multis  negantur.  This  view 
was  a  very  favourite  one  with  the  Mystics,  who  observed  ho\v  in  the  festivals  the  first 
and  eighth  days,  that  is,  their  beginnings  and  their  glorious  consummations,  were  com- 
monly the  days  of  chieftest  gladness,  and  they  compare  these  joys  to  sugared  dainties, 
with  which  those  who  are  as  it  were  children  in  spiritual  things,  are  first  allured  into 
Christ's  school.  Volmar  (De  Spirit.  Perfect.)  uses  a  like  image  :  Haec  itaque  devo- 
tionis  gratia  infantibus  dari  solet,  ut  ad  bona  opera  per  eam  incitentur,  quemadmodum 
venaticis  canibus  in  principio  solet  gustus  ferarum  captarum  praeberi,  ut  ad  venandura 
ed  fortii»s  insistant. — Before  leaving  this  parable,  I  would  just  take  notice  of  a  very 
interesting  allegory,  called  indeed  itself,  but  incorrectly,  a  parable,  founded  upon  this 
present  one,  which  appears  among  the  works  of  St.  Bernard,  but  is  by  his  Benedictine 
editors  (v.  1,  p.  1251)  attributed  to  some  other  author. 


332  THE  UNJUST  STEWARD. 

not  attempt  to  give  a  complete  account  of  all  the  interpretations  to  which 
it  has  been  submitted  ;  since  that  would  be  an  endless  task,*  but  as  I 
go  through  the  parable  shall  note  what  parts  of  it  those  interpreters, 
who  have  the  best  right  to  be  heard,  have  considered  its  key-words,  and 
the  meanings  which  they  have  made  the  whole  parable  to  render  up, 
noting  at  the  same  time  what  seem  the  weak  and  unsatisfactory  points 
in  those  explanations  which  I  shall  reject. 

The  Lord,  having  finished  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  did  not 
break  off  the  conversation,  but, — it  is  probable  afler  a  short  pause,  which 
he  allowed  that  his  Avords  might  sink  down  into  the  hearts  of  his  hearers, 
^-resumed,  addressing  his  words  however  not  any  more  to  the  gain- 
sayers  and  opposers, — not  to  the  Pharisees,  but  to  those  who  heard  him 
gladly  and  willingly, — to  "  his  disciples,"  as  we  are  (ver.  1)  expressly 
told.  By  "  his  disciples,^  we  must  understand  not  exclusively  the  twelve 
(see  Luke  vi.  13)  nor  yet  on  the  other  hand  the  multitude,  in  a  certain 
degree  well  afTected  to  the  doctrine  and  person  of  Christ,  yet  at  the 
same  time  hanging  loosely  upon  him, — following  him  from  place  to  place 
but  with  minds  not  as  yet  made  up  to  join  themselves  without  reserve 
to  him  as  to  their  master  and  lord  : — rather  the  whole  body  of  those  who 
had  attached  themselves  to  be  taught  of  him,  whom  his  word  had  found 
out  in  the  deep  of  their  spirits,  and  who  having  left  the  world's  service, 
had  decidedly  passed  over  into  the  ranks  of  his  people.  To  them,  to  the 
"  disciples^'  so  understood,  the  parable  was  addressed,  and  for  them 
meant,  since  it  is  scarcely  probable,  as  some  would  have  it,  that  the 
Lord  was  speaking  to  them,  but  at  the  Pharisees.  These,  last  it  is  true, 
were  a/so  hearers  of  the  Lord's  words,  (ver.  14,)  but  the  very  mention 
of  them  as  such  excludes  them  from  being  the  persons  to  whom  it  was 
primarily  addressed.  The  Lord  may  have  intended, — it  would  seem 
most  likely  did  intend, — some  of  his  shafts  to  glance  ofTupon  them,  while 
yet  it  was  not  at  them  that  they  were  originally  aimed.  We  shall  pre- 
sently see  that  in  relation  to,  at  least,  one  of  the  expositions  which  are 
offered,  it  will  be  important  to  have  fixed  in  our  minds  for  whom  above 
all  the  parable  was  meant. 

"  There  was  a  certain  rich  man,  which  had  a  steward,"  not  a  land- 
bailifff  merely,  but  a  ruler  over  all  his  goods,  such  as  was  Eliezer  in 

*  Schreiter,  in  a  work  entirely  devoted  to  this  parable,  (Explic.  Farah.  de  improlv 
CEcon.  Descriptio;  Lips.  1803,)  gives  an  appalling  list  of  explanations  offered,  and  a 
brief  analysis  and  judgment  of  them  all ;  but  I  have  not  been  able  to  derive  much  as- 
sistance from  the  book. 

t  And  iherefcre  not  villicns,  which  the  Vulgate  has,  nor  yet  dispensator,  which  i» 
a  cashier.  The  inaccuracy  of  the  first  expression  is  noted  and  corrected  by  Jerome 
{Ep.  121,  qu.  6,)  who  at  the  same  time  gives  a  good  account  of  what  were  the  stew- 


THE  UNJUST  STEWARD.  333 

the  house  of  Abraham,  (Gen.  xxiv.  2-12,)  and  Joseph  in  the  house  of 
Potiphar.  (Gen.  xxxix.  4.)  It  was  one  of  the  main  duties  of  such  a 
steward  to  dispense  their  portions  of  food  to  the  different  members  of  the 
household,  (Luke  xii.  42,)  to  give  the  servants  or  slaves  their  portion  in 
due  season,  a  duty  which  we  sometimes  find  undertaken  by  the  diligent 
mistress  of  an  house,  (Prov.  xxxi.  15.)  "  Aiid  the  same  was  accused 
unto  him  that  he  had  wasted  his  goods. '"^  This  of  the  lord's  needing  that 
the  ill  conduct  of  his  steward  should  come  to  his  ears  through  a  third 
party,  belongs  to  the  earthly  setting  forth  of  the  truth :  yet  it  finds  its 
parallel,  Gen.  xviii.  30,  31.  There  is  not  the  slightest  ground  for  sup- 
posing, as  some  have  done,  that  the*  steward  was  falsely  and  calum- 
niously  accused.  It  lies  not  in  the  word,  for  the  same  is  used  Dan.  iii.  8, 
where  it  is  said  that  certain  Chaldfeans  came  near  and  accused  the  Jews  ; 
yet  it  was  not  falsely  that  they  accused  them  of  having  refused  to  wor- 
ship the  golden  image ;  nor  had  Daniel  been  calumniously  accused  of 
having  knelt  and  prayed,  and  given  thanks  before  his  God  ;— malignantly 
it  might  be,  and  in  each  case  was,  and  so  much  lies  in  the  word,  but  not 
falsely.f  No  support  then  is  to  be  found  in  this  woixi  for  their  view, 
who  would  in  a  greater  or  less  measure  clear  the  character  of  the  stew- 
ard.:};    Indeed   his  own  words  (ver.  3)   seem  an  implicit   acknowledg- 


ard's  duties :  Villjcus  propria  villas  gubernator  est,  unde  nomen  accepit.  OIkovo^os 
autem  tarn  pecuniae  qua,m  fruguin,  et  omnium  quae  dominus  possidet,  dispensator.  See 
too  Ad  Eustoch.,  Ep.  22,  c.  35,  for  the  duties  of  the  oeeonomus,  in  the  Egyptian  mo- 
nasteries ;  and  for  much  information  on  the  subject,  Mr.  Greswell's  Exp.  of  the  Par., 
V.  4,  p.  3,  and  Becker's  Ckarikles,  v.  2,  p.  37-  Procurator  would  be  the  best  transla- 
tion. (See  Becker's  GaZiM5,v.  1,  p.  109.)  In  the  pictures  lately  discovered  in  the 
Egyptian  tombs,  the  steward  is  seen  often  with  all  his  writing  materials,  taking  an  ex- 
act note  of  the  amount  of  the  harvest,  before  it  is  stored  in  the  granaries  ;  (Hengsten- 
berg's  Backer  Moses,  und  jEgypten,  p.  23  ;)  which  is  something  to  the  point  here,  as 
the  same  person  would  naturally  have  the  oversight  of  the  outgoings  as  well. 

*  There  does  not  seem  any  reason  why  we  should  have  shared  the  error  of  the 
Vulgate,  quasi  dissipdsset,  when  it  is  plain  from  the  present  (^f  6ta<jKnpTTi^o}i')  of  the 
original,  that  it  is  no  past,  but  an  actual  and  present,  unfaithfulness  to  his  trust  with 
which  he  is  charged. 

t  In  both  places  the  same  word  {Stj/3,i\\oj)  is  used  in  the  SeptuagiiU,  by  which 
Luke  here  expresses  the  accusation  against  the  steward.  Cf  2  Mace.  iii.  11.  He  was 
as  the  Vulgate  has  it,  diffamatus,  but  not  in  our  English  use  of  the  word,  defamed. 

t  As  for  instance  Schleiermacher,  who  says:  "  The  right  view  of  this  parable  is  to 
be  sure  very  much  perverted,  if  the  steward  who,  after  all,  has  not  committed  any 
breacli  of  trust  (?)  on  his  own  account,  nor  was  charged  with  it,  is  notwithstanding  to 
be  termed  oUof.  r.  doiKias,  and  we  will  not  make  up  our  minds  to  leave  oiKov6iios  with- 
out an  epithet,  and  to  refer  this  dSiKiai  to  ivrivnatv  :  [against  this  construction  see  Wi- 
ner's Grnmmatik,  p.  185] :  and  if  the  master  who  treats  his  servant  in  so  very  arbi- 
trary a  way,  and  discharges  him,  without  inquiry,  upon  a  secret  information,  and  who 


334  THE  UNJUST  STEWARD. 

ment  of  his  guilt :  he  proposes  not  to  make  any  defence,  and  his  after 
conduct,  his  scheme  for  helping  himself  out  of  his  difficulties,  will  allow 
no  conclusion,  but  that  the  accusation,  though  it  might  have  been 
brought  against  him  by  some  enemy  and  from  malicious  motives,  yet 
was  one  with  most  entire  foundation  in  the  truth.  The  accusation  was, 
that  he  wasted  or  scattered  his  master's  goods, — that  he  administered 
them  without  due  fidelity,  turning  them  to  private  ends,  laying  them  out 
for  himself  and  not  for  his  lord.  This  last,  when  the  charges  against 
his  steward  were  brought  to  his  ears,  "  called  him  and  said  unlo  Mm,  How 
is  it  that  I  hear  this  of  thee  V  This  is  not  examination,  but  rather  the 
expostulation  of  indignant  surprise, — "o/"  thee*  whom  I  had  trusted  so 
far, — to  whom  I  had  committed  so  much  ;  Give  an  account  of  thy  stew- 
ardship, for  thou  may  est  be  no  longer  steward." 

They  who,  like  Anslem,  see  in  the  pai'able  the  rise  and  growth  and 
fruits  of  repentance,  lay  much  stress  upon  these  words,  "  How  is  it  that 
I  hear  this  of  thee  V  This  remonstrance  is  for  them  the  voice  of  God 
speaking  to  the  sinner,  and  convincing  him  of  sin,  bringing  home  to  his 
conscience  that  he  has  had  a  stewardship  and  has  been  abusing  it ;  and 
the  threat,  thou  mayest  he  no  longer  steward,^''  is  in  like  manner  a  bring- 
ing home  to  him,  by  sickness  or  by  some  other  means,  that  he  will  soon  be 
removed  from  his  earthly  stewardship,  and  have  to  render  an  account. 
He  feels  that  he  cannot  answer  God  one  thing  in  a  thousand,  and  that 
when  once  he  is  thus  removed,  there  will  be  no  help  for  him :  he  cannot 
dig,  for  the  night  will  have  come  in  which  no  man  can  work  ;  and  he 
will  be  ashamed  to  beg  for  that  mercy,  which  he  knows  will  then  be 
refused.     Consistently  with  this  view,  they  see  in  the  lowering  of  the 


besides  discovers  no  higher  measure  by  which  he  judges  of  human  actions  than  pru- 
dence, if  this  character  is  all  along  considered  a  blameless  man."  But  it  is  very  diffi- 
cult to  see  what  Schleiermacher  would  gain  for  his  scheme  by  the  altered  construction. 
"  The  Lord  praised  the  steward  for  his  injustice,"  comes  pretty  nearly  to  the  same 
thing  as,"  The  Lord  praised  the  unjust  steward;"  and  with  such  analogous  phrases 
as  fiafibiva  Tiii  a&iKiai,  Kpirti;  t^j  dStKui;,  (Luke  xviii.  6,)  liKpoariii  ini\ria^ov!li  (Jam.  i.  25), 
he  will  scarcely  persuade  that  the  ordinary  and  natural  collocation  of  the  words  is  to 
be  abandoned,  even  to  help  out  his  marvellous  interpretation  of  the  parable,  according  to 
which  the  rich  householder  is  the  Romans,  the  steward  the  publicans,  and  the  debtors 
the  Jewish  people  ;  the  lesson  it  contains  being,  If  the  publicans  show  themselves  mild 
and  indulgent  towards  their  nation,  the  Romans  will  in  their  hearts  praise  them,  and 
they  who  have  now  lost  all  favour  with  their  countrymen,  will  by  them  be  favourably 
received.  But  in  what  sense,  it  may  be  asked,  could  a  coming  into  favour  with  the 
Jewish  people  be  termed  a  reception  into  everlasting  habitations?  this  last  is  somewhat 
too  strong  a  phrase  for  anything  which  they  could  do  for  those  who  showed  them- 
selves favourably  disposed  towards  them. 

*  Wetstein :  Mirantis  ;  de  te  !  quem  procuratorem  constitui. 


THE  UNJUST  STEWARD.  335 

bills,  not  a  further  and  crowning  act  of  unrighteousness  on  his  part,  but 
the  first  act  of  his  righteousness,  the  dealing  of  one  who  now  seeks, 
while  he  has  time,  to  do  good  with  that  which  is  committed  to  him,  to 
lay  out  the  things  in  his  power  not  with  merely  selfish  aims,  but  in  acts 
of  charity  and  kindness,  to  scatter  for  God  rather  than  for  himself,  to 
heap  up  in  heaven  and  not  on  earth.  The  dishonesty  of  the  act  they 
get  over,  either  by  giving  this  lowering  of  the  bills  altogether  a  mystical 
meaning,  and  so  refusing  to  contemplate  it  in  the  letter  at  all,  or  in  a 
way  of  which  we  shall  presently  have  to  take  notice.  He  is  still  called, 
they  say,  the  "  unjust'"  steward,  (ver.  8,)  not  because  he  remains  such, 
but  because  of  his  former  unrighteousness  ;  he  bears  that  name  for  the 
encouragement  of  penitents.  It  is  as  much  as  to  say.  Though  he  had 
been  this  unrighteous  ungodly  man  beforetime,  he  yet  obtained  now 
praise  and  commendation  from  his  lord.  He  retained  the  title,  as  did 
Matthew  that  of  "the  publican,"  (Matt.  x.  3,)  even  after  he  had  become 
an  apostle  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,*  in  perpetual  remembrance  of  the 
grace  of  God  which  had  found  him  in  that  mean  employment,  and  out  of 
that  had  raised  him  to  so  great  a  dignity  ;  as  in  like  manner  we  have 
Zenas  the  lawyer,  (Tit.  iii.  13  ;)  Rahab  the  harlot,  (Heb,  xi.  31 ;)  Simon 
the  leper,  (Matt.  xxvi.  6  ;)  not  that  such  they  were  now,  but  that  such 
they  once  had  been.  But  there  is  nothing  in  the  man's  counsels  with 
himself  that  marks  the  least  change  of  mind,  the  slightest  repentance, — 
no  recognition  of  guilt,  no  acknowledgment  of  a  trust  abused,  no  desire 
expressed  henceforward  to  be  found  faithful,  but  only  an  utterance  of 
selfish  anxiety  concerning  his  future  lot,  of  fear  lest  poverty  and  distress 
may  come  upon  him  ;  and  the  explanation,  however  ingenious,  of  his 
being  still  characterized  (ver.  8)  as  the  "  wn;w*i"  steward,  is  quite  unsat- 
isfactory. 

But  now  follow  his  counsels  with  himself,  and  first  his  expression  of 
utter  inability  any  where  to  find  help:  his  past  softness  of  life  has  unfit- 
ted him  for  labour  :  his  pride  forbids  his  begging.  Yet  this  helplessness 
endures  not  long.  He  knows  what  he  will  do ;  and  has  rapidly  con- 
ceived a  plan  whereby  to  make  provision  against  that  time  of  need  and 


»  So  the  author  of  a  sermon  in  the  Bened.  edit,  of  St.  Bernard,  (v.  2,  p.  714,)' 
who  gives  this  as  the  sum  of  the  parable  :  Multa  laude  est  dignus,  qui  reHcto  errore 
pristinae  conversationis,  diviti  Deo  satislaciens  redit  ad  gratiam:  and  Anselm,  (//bwi. 
12,)  who,  however,  sees  in  the  steward  only  an  unfaithful  ruler  in  the  Church,  not 
€very  man  to  whom  a  dispensation  has  been  committed,  which  he  has  been  abusing;. 
— he  says:  Laudari  a  Domino  meruit;  et  nos  ergo  laudemus  eum,  .  .  .  nee  eum  in 
aliquo,  priusquam  correctus  est,  audeamus  reprehendere,  ut  htec  putemus  in  his  quae 
crga  debitores  egit  domino  fraudem  fecisse,  sed  potius  credamus  eum  in  his  lucra 
Domini  sui  prudenti  consilio  quaesisse,  et  ejus  voluntatem  implcsse. 


336  THE  UNJUST  STEWARD. 

destitution  which  is  now  so  near  at  hand.  If  his  determination  is  not 
honest,  it  is  at  any  rate  promptly  taken ;  and  this  is  part,  no  doubt,  of 
the  skill  for  which  he  gets  credit, — that  he  was  not  brought  to  a  nonplus, 
but  quickly  found  a  way  of  escape  from  his  distresses.  "J  amresolved 
what  to  do,  that  ivhen  I  am  put  out  of  the  stewardship  *  they  may  receive 
me  into  their  houses,"  as  one  from  whom  they  have  received  kindnesses, 
and  who,  therefore,  may  trust  to  find  hospitable  entertainment  among 
them, — a  miserable  prospect,  as  the  son  of  Sirach  declares,  (xxix.  22— 
28,)  yet  belter  than  utter  destitution  and  want.  Hereupon  follows  the 
collusion  between  him  and  his  lord's  debtors.  They  owed,  it  seems,  to 
the  householder,  at  least  the  two  whose  cases  are  instanced,  and  who  are 
evidently  brought  forward  as  representatives  of  many  more, — ^just  as  but 
three  servants  are  named  out  of  the  ten,  (Lukexix.  13,)  to  whom  pounds 
had  been  intrusted, — the  one  an  hundred  measures  of  oil,  and  the  other 
an  hundred  measures  of  wheat.  It  is  not  likely  that  they  were  tenants 
of  his,  who  paid  their  rents  in  kind,  which  rents  were  now  by  the  stew- 
ard lowered,  and  the  leases  tampered  with  ;  the  name  "  debtor  "  seems 
not  to  point  that  way.  Again,  the  enormous  amount  f  of  the  oil  and 
wheat,  both  of  them  costly  articles,  (see  Prov.  xxi.  17,)  which  is  due, 
makes  it  equally  unlikely  that  these  "  debtors  "  were  poorer  neighbours 
or  dependents,  whom  the  rich  householder  had  supplied  with  means  of 
living  in  the  shape  of  food, — not  however  as  a  gift,  but  as  a  loan,  taking 
from  them  an  acknowledgment,  and  meaning  to  be  repaid,  when  they 
had  ability.  Rather  we  might  assume  the  foregoing  transactions,  by 
which  these  men  came  into  the  relation  of  debtors  to  the  rich  man,  to 
have  been  of  this  kind, — that  he,  having  large  possessions,  and  therefore 
large  incomings  from  the  fruits  of  the  earth,  had  sold,  through  his  stew- 
ard, a  portion  of  such  upon  credit  to  these  debtors, — merchants,  or  other 
factors,  and  they  had  not  as  yet  made  their  payments.  They  had  given, 
however,  their  bills,  or  notes  of  hand,  acknowledging  the  amount  which 
they  had  received,  in  which  amount  they  owned  themselves  to  stand  in- 
•debted  to  him.  These,  which  had  remained  in  the  steward's  keeping, 
he  now  returns  to  them, — "  Take  thy  bill,"  or,  "Take  back  thy  bill":}: — 

*  In  the  Vulgate  :  Amotus  ii  viUicatione  ;  but  Tertullian  in  far  happier  Latin  :  ab 
actu  summotus. 

t  The  word  "  meaxure"  in  our  translation,  wliidi  may  be  a  small  or  a  large 
■quantity,  fails  to  intimate  this.  Better  Tyndal  and  Cranmer,  who  give  it,  "  tuns  of 
oil,"  (the  Rhemish,  pipes)  and  "  quarters  of  wheat."  It  is  exactly  this  quantity,  one 
hundred  cors  of  wheat,  which,  in  one  of  the  apocryphal  gospels,  where  every  thing 
is  on  a  gigantic  scale,  as  with  tlwsc  wljose  only  notion  of  greatness  is  size,  we  are 
•told  that  the  child  Jesus  received  in  return  for  a  single  grain  of  wheat  which  he  hatl 
planted  in  the  ground.     (Thilo's  Cod.  Apocryph.,  p.  302.) 

X   r(J(i/</<a  =  ■xe.ipoyfM'lio]/  (Col.  11.  14)  =  ypanjinrtlov  ■>^pcovi  6fi»Xoynri»(di',.  by  the  Vlll- 


THE  UNJUST  STEWARD.  337 

bidding  them  to  alter  them,  or  substitute  or  others  in  their  room,  in  which 
they  confess  themselves  to  have  received  much  smaller  amounts  of  oil 
and  wheat  than  was  actually  the  case,  and  consequently  to  be  so  much 
less  in  the  rich  man's  debt  than  they  truly  were.  To  one  debtor  he  re- 
mits half,  to  another  the  fifth  of  his  debt ;  by  these  different  proportions 
teaching  us,  say  many,  that  charity  is  not  to  be  a  blind  profuseness,  ex- 
hibited without  respect  of  the  needs,  greater  or  smaller,  of  those  who 
are  its  objects,  but  ever  to  be  exercised  with  consideration  and  discretion  * 
— that  the  hand  is  to  be  opened  to  some  more  widely  than  to  others. 

In  this  lowering  of  the  bills,  Vitringa  f  finds  the  key  of  the  parable, 
and  proposes  the  following  interpretation,  which  deserves  to  be  recorded, 
if  for  nothing  else,  yet  for  its  exceeding  ingenuity.  The  rich  man  is 
God,  the  steward  the  Pharisees,  or  rather  all  the  ecclesiastical  leaders 
of  the  people,  to  whom  was  committed  the  administration  of  the  kingdom 
of  God,  who  were  stewards  of  its  mysteries.  But  they  were  accused  by 
the  prophets,  (see  for  instance  Ezek.  xxxiv.  2 ;  Mai.  ii.  8,)  and  lastly  by 
Christ  himself,  that  they  neglected  their  stewardship,  used  the  power 
committed  to  them,  not  for  the  glory  of  God,  but  for  purposes  of  self- 
honour — that  they  scattered  his  goods.  They  feel  the  justice  of  this  ac- 
cusation, and  that  they  are  not  in  the  grace  of  their  Lord,  and  only  out- 
wardly belong  to  his  kingdom.  Therefore  they  now  seek  to  make  them- 
selves friends  of  others,  of  the  debtors  of  their  Lord,  of  sinful  men,— and 
this  they  do,  acting  as  though  they  still  possessed  authority  in  the  things 
of  his  kingdom.  And  the  way  by  which  they  seek  to  make  these  friends 
is,  by  lowering  the  standard  of  righteousness  and  obedience,  inventing 
convenient  glosses  for  the  evading  of  the  strictness  of  God's  law,  allow- 
ing men  to  say,  "  It  is  a  gift,"  (Matt.  xv.  5,)  suffering  them  to  put  away 
their  wives  on  any  slight  excuse,  (Luke  xvi.  18,)  and  by  various  devi- 
ces making  slack  the  law  of  God  ;  (Matt,  xxiii.  16,)— thus  obtaining  for 
themselves  favour  and  an  interest  with  men,  and  so  enabling  themselves, 
although  God's  grace  was  withdrawn  from  them,  still  to  keep  their  hold 
on  men,  and  to  retain  their  advantages,  their  honours,  and  their  peculiar 
privileges.  This  interpretation  has  one  attraction,  that  it  gives  a  distinct 
meaning  to  the  lowering  of  the  bills,—"  Write  fifty,''  "  Write  fourscore  ;" 
— which  very  few  others  do.  The  moral  will  then  be  no  other  than  is 
commonly  and  rightly  drawn  from  the  parable  ;  Be  prudent  as  they,  as 
these  children  of  the  present  world,  but  provide  for  yourselves  not  tem- 

gate  happily  translated,  cautio.  See  the  Did.  of  Gr.  and  Rom.  Antt.,  s.  v.  Interest 
of  money,  p.  524. 

*  Thus  Gregory  the  Great,  who  quotes  from  Gen.  iv. :  Si  recte  offeras,  et  non 
recte  dividas,  peccasti. 

t  Erklar.  d.  Parah.,  p.  921,  seq.  This  seems  to  have  been  the  standing  interpre- 
tation of  the  Cocceian  school,  for  see  Deyling's  Obss.  Sac,  v.  5,  p.  335. 


338  THE  UNJUST  STEWARD. 

porary  friends,  but  everlasting  habitations  :  they  use  heavenly  things  for 
earthly  objects ;  but  do  you  reverse  the  case,  and  show  how  earthly 
things  may  be  used  for  heavenly.* 

Connected  with  this  view  is  that  of  the  writer  of  an  elaborate  article 
in  a  modern  German  Review. f  He  conceives  the  parable  was  meant 
for  the  scribes  and  Pharisees — only  that  he  makes  it  to  contain  counsel 
for  them, — the  unjust  stewai'd  is  set  forth  for  them  to  copy  ;  while 
Vitringa  made  it  to  contain  a  condemnation  of  them.  They  were 
the  stewards  and  administrators  in  a  dispensation  which  was  now 
coming  to  a  close  ;  and  when  in  its  room  the  kingdom  of  Christ  was 
set  up,  then  their  much  abused  stewardship  would  be  taken  away 
from  them.  The  writer  finds  in  the  parable  an  exhortation  to  them,* 
that  in  the  little  while  that  should  intervene  between  the  announce- 
ment and  actual  execution  of  this  purpose  of  God's,  they  should  cultivate 
that  spirit  which  alone  would  give  them  an  entrance  "  into  everlasting 
habitations,^^  into  the  kingdom  not  to  be  moved, — the  spirit,  that  is,  which 
they  so  much  lacked,  of  mildness  and  love  and  meekness  toward  all  men, 
their  fellow  sinners.  This  spirit  and  the  works  which  it  would  prompt, 
he  affirms,  are  justly  set  forth  under  the  image  of  the  remission  of  debts ij: 

*  With  the  interpretation  of  these  words  as  being  a  lowering  the  standard  of  obe- 
dience very  nearly  agrees  the  use  of  the  parable  which  is  made  in  the  Liber  S.  Joannis 
Apocryphus,  a  religious  book  of  the  Albigenses,  republished  in  Thilo's  Codex  Apo- 
cryphus,  p.  884,  seq.  It  is  with  the  very  question  which  the  steward  here  puts  to  the 
debtors,"  How  much  owest  thou  unto  my  lord  ?"  and  with  the  bidding  "  Write  fifty" 
"  Write  fourscore,"  that  Satan  is  introduced  as  tempting  and  seducing  the  inferior 
angels  (blandiendo  angelos  invisibilis  Patris).  The  very  ingenious  exposition  of  the 
parable  by  Gaudentius,  bishop  of  Brescia,  a  cotemporary  of  St.  Ambrose,  is  in  the 
same  line.  He  says,  Villicus  iniquitatis  Diabolus  intelligendus  est,  qui  in  seculo  re- 
lictus  est,  ut  immunitatem  [immanitatem  ?]  ejus  villici  fugientes  ad  pietatem  Dei  sup- 
pliciter  curramus.  Hie  dissipat  facultates  Domini,  quando  in  nos  grassatur,  qui  portio 
Domini  sumus.  Hie  excogitat  quomodo  valeat  debitores  Domini,  h.  e.,  peccatis  in- 
volutos  non  solum  aperto  praelio  persequi,  sed  sub  obtentu  fallacis  benevolentiae,  blandd, 
fraude  decipere,  quo  magis  eum  in  domos  suas  falsa,  benignitate  seducti  recipiant,  cum 
ipso  in  aeternum  judicandi  .  .  .  Hie  debita  conservorum  suorum  reiaxare  se  falso  pro- 
mittit,  dum  vel  in  fide  vel  in  opere  peccantibus  variam  pollicetur  indulgentiam.  .  .  . 
Laudat  [Salvator]  astutiam  villici  minaciter  simul  et  providenter.  Minaciter  quidem, 
ci!im  vocabulo  iniquitatis  pessimam  Diaboli  prudentiam  condemnat :  providenter  au- 
tem,  dum  contra  argumentorum  ejus  consilia  discipulos  audientes  confirraat,  ut  omni 
cautela  atque  prudentia  tain  callido  atque  prudenti  inimico  repugnent. 

t  Zyro,  in  the  Theol.  Stud.  u.  Krit.  for  1831,  p.  776.  He  had  been  however, 
though  he  seems  not  to  know  it,  long  ago  anticipated  by  Salmeron  (Serm.  in  Evang. 
Par.,  p.  231)  :  Quia  enini  Scribae  et  Pharisaei  cum  lege  et  sacerdotio  in  promptu  erant, 
ut  deficerent  .  .  hortatur  Dominus  ut  dent  operam.ne  auster6  cum  peccatoribus  pro- 
cedant,  .  .  ut  ita  sibi  praeparent  amicos,  qui  eos  in  Evangelium  recipiant. 

t  Weisse  {Evang.  Gesch.,v.  2,  p.  162,  seq.)  brings  forward  as  though  it  were  a 
great  discovery  of  his  own,  and  all  that  was  wanted  for  the  easy  explanation  of  the 


THE  UNJUST  STEWARD.  339 

— and  those,  debts  due  to  another,  since  it  is  against  God  that  primarily 
every  sin  is  committed.  Such  a  spirit  as  this,  of  love  and  gentleness  to- 
ward all  men,  flows  out  of  the  recognition  of  our  own  guilt,  which  re- 
cognition the  writer  finds  in  the  absence  on  the  steward's  part  of  all  at- 
tempts to  justify  or  excuse  himself.  The  same  temper  which  would 
prompt  them  to  these  works  of  love  and  grace,  would  fit  them  also  for  an 
entrance  into  the  everlasting  habitations,  the  coming  kingdom,,  which,  un- 
like  that  dispensation  now  ready  to  vanish  away,  should  endure  forever. 
But  how  shall  this  interpretation  be  reconciled  with  the  words,  "  Be 
said  also  unto  his  disciples,'^  with  which  the  Evangelist  introduced  the 
parable  ?*  it  will  then  plainly  be  addressed  not  to  them,  but  to  the  scribes 
and  Pharisees. 

But  to  return  ; — with  these  new  acts  of  unrighteousness  this  child  of 
the  present  world  filled  up  the  short  interval  between  his  threatened  and 
his  actual  destitution  of  his  office.  It  is  not  said  that  he  attempted  to 
conceal  the  fraudulent  arrangement  which  he  was  making,  or  that  he 
called  his  lord's  debtors  together  secretly — whether  it  was  that  he  trusted 
that  they  would  keep  counsel,  being  held  together  by  a  common  interest 
and  by  the  bands  of  a  common  iniquity, — or  whether  he  thus  falsified 
the  accounts,  fearing  neither  God  nor  man,  careless  whether  the  trans- 
action were  blown  abroad  or  not,  as  being  now  a  desperate  man,  who  had 
no  character  to  lose,  and  who  was  determined  to  brave  the  matter,  confi- 
dent that  there  would  be  no  redress  for  his  lord,  when  the  written  docu- 
ments testified  against  him.  This  latter  seems  to  me  the  most  probable 
supposition — that  the  thing  was  done  openly  and  in  the  face  of  day,f  and 

parable,  this  view,  that  the  lowering  of  the  bills  is  the  image  here  wnder  which,  not 
acts  of  bounty  and  love  with  the  temporal  mammon,  but  the  spiritual  act  of  the  for- 
giveness of  sins,  is  represented.  He  owns,  however,  that  he  cannot  bring  this  into 
agreement  with  ver.  9,"  Make  to  yourselves  friends  of  the  mammon  of  unrighteous- 
ness" and  the  words  in  Italics  he  therefore  includes  in  brackets,  being  "  convinced  that 
Jesus  never  spoke  them  !" 

*  Not  very  unlike  this,  is  the  explanation  given  by  Tertullian  {Be  Fuga  in  PerseCr 
c.  13),  only  that  he  makes  the  exhortation  to  be  addressed  to  the  entire  Jewish  peo- 
ple, and  not  to  the  spiritual  chiefs  of  the  nation  alone  :  Facite  autem  vobis  amicos  de 
mammona, ;  quomodo  intelligendum  sit  parabola  praemissa  doceat,  ad  populum  Judai- 
cum  dicta,  qui  commissam  sibi  rationem  Domini  cilm  male  administrasset,  deberet  de 
mammonae  hominibus,  quod  nos  eramus,  amicos  sibi  potius  prospicere  quam  inimicos, 
et  relevare  nos  a  debitis  peccatorum,  quibus  Deo  detinebamur,  si  nobis  de  dominici 
ratione  conferrent,  ut  ciim  ccepisset  ab  hujus  deficere  gratia,,  ad  nostram  fidem  refugi- 
eMs  reciperentur  in  tabernacula  aeterna. 

t  His  words  to  the  debtors,  "  Sit  down  quickly  and  write,"  may  appear  to  some 
characteristic  of  a  man  who  wished  to  huddle  over  the  matter  as  fast  as  possibie,  for 
fear  of  discovery  ; — so  Bengel  explains  them, — Taxi(os,  rap^m,  furtim  ;  and  Maldo- 
natus :  Quod  dicit  citd,  hominis  mihi  fraudulenti  et  malfe  agentis  esse  videtur,  timentis. 


340  THE  UNJUST  STEWARD. 

that  the  arrangement  was  such  as,  from  some  cause  or  other,  being  once 
completed,  could  not  be  broken,  but  must  be  permitted  to  stand.  Were 
it  meant  to  have  been  a  secret  transaction,  the  lord's  discovery  of  the 
fraud  would  hardly  have  been  passed  over,  and  the  steward  would 
scarcely  have  obtained  for  a  contrivance  which  proved  so  clumsy  that  it 
was  presently  seen  through  and  detected,  even  the  limited  praise  which 
he  does  obtain  as  a  skilful  adapter  of  his  means  to  his  ends.  Least  of 
all  would  he  have^obtained  such  praise,  if  it  had  depended  merely  on  the 
forbearance  of  his  master,  in  the  case  of  discovery  being  made,  which 
the  event  proved  must  have  been  regarded  as  probable  from  the  begin- 
ning, whether  the  arrangement  should  be  allowed  to  stand  good  or  not. 
Such  forbearance  could  not  have  been  counted  on,  even  though  the 
words  *  of  the  lord  should  lead  us,  in  the  present  instance,  to  assume  that 
he  did  not  allow  the  steward  to  reap  the  full  benefits  which  he  hoped 
from  his  dishonest  scheming. 

But  whether  the  arrangement  was  a  clandestine  one  or  not,  that  it  was 
a  fraudulent  one  seems  beyond  a  doubt :  such,  on  the  face  of  it,  it  is,  and 
any  attempt  to  mitigate,  or  explain  away  the  dishonesty  of  the  act,  is 
hopeless.f     It  may  be  said,  indeed,  and  has  sometimes  been  so,  that  this 

ne  in  scelere  deprehendalur,  ne  quis  dum  adulterantur  litterse,  superveniat.  But  there 
is  another  fair  explanation,  that  they  are  the  words  of  a  man  who  feels  that  what  is  to 
be  done,  must  be  done  at  once — that  to-day  he  has  means  to  help  himself,  while  to- 
morrow they  will  have  passed  from  his  hands.  The  transaction  was  evidently  not  with 
the  debtors,  one  by  one,  apart  from  and  unknown  to  each  other,  as  is  slightly  but  suffi- 
ciently indicated,  by  the  av  Si,  ("  And  thou,")  with  which  the  steward  begins  his  ad- 
dress to  the  second. 

*  Jensen, however,  who  has  a  very  interesting  essay  on  this  parable,  {Theol.  Stud. 
«.  Krit.,  1829,  p.  699),  sees  a  spiritual  significance  in  the  householder's  forbearing  to 
break  the  arrangement — he  says:  "  That  which  is  related  of  the  master, — how  he  re- 
gards the  dealing  of  the  steward, — does  not  blame  it,  nor  stand  to  his  rights, — seems  to 
me  to  be  the  setting  forth  of  the  grace  of  God,  through  which,  instead  of  entering  into 
judgment  with  sinful  men,  he  rather  rewards  the  good  in  them,  which,  according  to  strict 
right,  could  not  even  attain  to  secure  them  from  punishment.  For  he  leaves  the  stew- 
ard to  enjoy  the  fruit  of  his  device — and  since,  after  what  has  been  said  above,  it  can- 
not be  conveniently  supposed  that  he  had  no  right  to  demand  a  strict  reckoning  in  the 
matter,  it  only  remains  to  consider  this  conduct  as  a  voluntary  forbearance  on  his  part." 

t  One  might  say  absurd,  but  that  it  has  been  done  with  so  much  ability  by  Schulz  in 
an  instructive  little  treatise,  (Ub.  d.  Parabelvon  Vcrwalter,  Breslau,  1821,)  as  to  redeem 
is  from  such  a  charge.  The  ancient  oiKopdjios,  he  says,  was  one  with  far  greater  liberty 
of  action,  more  uncontrolled  freedom  in  the  administration  of  the  things  committed  to 
him,  than  any  to  whom  we  should  in  modern  times  apply  the  title  of  steward — Wd 
the  sum  of  his  statement  seems  this,  (though  the  comparison  is  not  his,)  that  his  con- 
duct at  this  latest  moment  of  iiis  stewardship,  however  merely  selfish  it  might  be,  yet 
was  no  more  dishonest,  ^laii  it  would  be  dishonest  on  the  part  of  the  minister  of  a 
kingdom,  who  had  hitherto  been  oppressing  the  people  under  him,  and  administering 


THE  UNJUST  STEWARD.  34J 

dishonesty  of  the  transaction  is  not  of  the  essence  of  the  parable,  but  an 
inconvenience  arising  from  the  inadequacy  of  earthly  relationships  to  set 
forth  divine.  They  must  fail  somewhere,  and  this  is  the  weak  side  of 
the  earthly  relation  between  a  steward  and  his  lord,  which  renders  it 
not  altogether  a  perfect  type  of  the  relation  existing  between  men  and 
God, — that  in  the  latter  case,  to  use  Hammond's  words,  "  the  man  hath 
liberty  to  use  the  wealth  put  into  his  hands,  so  as  may  be  most  (not  only 
for  his  master's  but  also)  for  his  own  advantage,  namely,  to  his  endless 
reward  in  heaven,  which,  though  it  were  an  injustice  and  falseness  in  a 
servant  here  on  earth,  who  is  altogether  to  consider  his  master's  profit, 
not  his  own,  yet  it  is  duty,  and  that  which  by  the  will  and  command  of 
God  we  are  obliged  to  do,  in  the  execution  of  that  steward's  office  which 
the  rich  man  holds  under  God — and  is  the  only  thing  commended  to  us 
in  this  parable ;  which  is  so  far  from  denominating  him  that  makes  this 
advantage  of  the  treasure  committed  to  him  an  unjust  or  unrighteous 
steward,  in  the  application,  that  it  denominates  \\\m faithful  (niatoq)  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  parable,  and  him  only  false  (udixog)  that  doth  it  not." 
In  worldly  things  there  is  not,  and  there  never  can  be,  such  absolute 
identity  of  interests  between  a  master  and  a  servant,  that  a  servant  deal- 
ing wholly  with  reference  to  his  own  interests,  would  at  the  same  time 
forward  in  the  best  manner  his  lord's.  But  our  interests  as  servants  of 
a  heavenly  Lord,  that  is,  our  true  interests,  absolutely  coincide  in  all 
things  with  his ;  so  that  when  we  administer  the  things  committed  to  us 
for  him,  then  we  lay  them  out  also  for  ourselves,  and  when  for  ourselves, 
for  our  lasting  and  eternal  gain,  then  also  for  him. 

"And  the  lord  commended  the  unjust  steivard,  because  he  had  done 
wisely.^'  Every  one  who  is  able  to  judge  of  the  construction  of  the  ori- 
ginal, will  at  once  acknowledge  that  it  is  the  lord  of  the  steward,  he  who 
has  twice  before  in  the  parable  been  called  by  this  name,  (ver.  3,  5,)  that 
is  here  rneant,  and  not  our  Lord,  who  does  not  begin  to  speak  directly  in 
his  own  person  till  ver.  9 — the  intermediate  verse  being  the  point  of 
transition  from  the  narration  to  the  direct  exhortation.*  The  attempt  to 
substitute  "cunningly"  for  the  "wisely''  of  our  translation,  and  so,  by 
limiting  and  lowering  the  commendation  given,  to  evade  the  moral  diffi- 
culty of  the  passage,  cannot  altogether  be  borne  out  by  an  appeal  to  the 


the  affairs  of  the  kingdom  for  his  own  interests  and  pleasures,  yet  now,  when  about  to 
be  removed  from  his  place  of  authority,  to  seek  to  win  the  people's  love  and  a  place  in 
their  hearts,  by  remitting  or  lowering  the  heavy  dues  and  taxes  with  which  before  he  had 
burdened  them. 

*  So  Augustine  (Enarr.  in  Ps.  liii.  2) :  Cor  ejus  laudavit  dominus  ejus.  Com- 
pare Luke  xii.  42  ;  xiv.  23,  where  in  like  manner  5  Kvpio;,  without  further  qualifica- 
tion, is  used  of  an  earthly  loid. 


342  THE  UNJUST  STEWARD. 

original.  "Wisely ''  may  not  be  the  happiest  word  that  could  have  been 
selected,  and  certainly  is  not,  since  wisdom  is  never  in  Scripture  discon- 
nected from  moral  goodness.*  But  if  more  commendation  is  implied  in 
^^  wisely"  than  the  original  warrants,  in  "cunningly"  there  would  be  less; 
"  prudently  "  is  clearly  the  word  that  should  have  been  chosen,  and  so 
in  Wiclif 's  translation  it  was,  though  the  word  has  disappeared  from  all 
our  subsequent  versions.  But  concerning  the  praise  itself,  which  can- 
not  be  explained  away  as  though  it  were  mere  admiration  of  the  man's 
cunning,  it  is  true  that  none  but  a  mere  malignant,  such  as  the  apostate 
Julian,  would- make  here  a  charge  against  the  morality  of  the  Scripture, 
or  pretend,  as  he  does,  to  believe  that  Jesus  meant  to  commend  an  un- 
righteous action,  and  propose  it,  in  its  unrighteousness,  as  a  model  for 
imitation. 

Yet  at  the  same  time  few  will  deny  that  the  praise  has  something 
perplexing  in  it — though  rather  from  the  liability  of  the  passage  to  abuse, 
unguarded  as  at  first  sight  it  appears,  though  it  is  not  really  so,  (for  see 
ver.  11,  which  should  never  be  disconnected  from  the  parable,)  than  from 
its  not  being  capable  of  a  fair  explanation.  The  explanation  is  clearly 
this  :  the  man's  deed  has  two  sides  on  which  it  may  be  contemplated, 
—one,  the  side  of  its  dishonesty,  upon  which  it  is  most  blameworthy, — 
the  other,  the  side  of  its  prudence,  its  foresight,  upon  which,  if  it  be  not 
particularly  praiseworthy,  yet  it-supplies  a  sufficient  ana^o^on  to  a  Chris- 
tian virtue, — one  which  should  be  abundantly,  but  is  only  too  weakly 
found  in  most  followers  of  Christ, — to  make  it  the  ground  of  an  exhorta- 
tion and  rebuke  to  these, — just  as  any  of  the  deeds  of  bold  bad  men  have 
a  side,  that  is  the  side  of  their  boldness  and  decision,  upon  which  they 
rebuke  the  doings  of  the  weak  and  vacillating  good.  There  are  martyrs 
of  the  Devil  who  put  to  shame  the  saints  of  God,  and  running  as  they  do 
with  more  alacrity  to  death  than  these  to  life,"f"  may  be  proposed  to  them 

*  In  Plato's  words,  Ilaira  in-itrrii/^ii  ■)^u>pii^ojiivr}  SiKaioaivrig  Kal  riyj  dWfji  dperfji,  navovpyia 
oil  ao<pia  (paivcrai.  Rather  (ppovijjiwi  is  a  middle  term,  not  bringing  out  prominently  the 
moral  characteristics,  either  good  or  evil,  of  the  action  to  which  it  is  applied,  but  recog- 
nizing in  it  a  skilful  adaptation  of  the  means  to  the  end — affirming  nothing  in  the  way 
of  moral  approbation  or  disapprobation  either  of  means  or  end,  but  leaving  their  worth 
to  be  determined  by  other  considerations.  If  the  ^pdi-i/joj  were  the  cunning,  we  should 
find  it  opposed  to  the  uKo/foj,  the  simple,  but  we  do  find  it  actually  opposed  to  the  jiwpos. 
(Matt.  vii.  24,  26  ;  xxv.  2.)  The  (/.pdi/Tjiris  stands  in  the  same  relation  to  the  aivcati 
(understanding)  as  the  ffo</jta  does  to  the  vovs  (reason). 

t  Bernard  :  Martyres  Diaboli  .  .  .  alacriCis  currunt  ad  mortem  quiim  nos  ad 
vitam.  There  is  a  striking  story  of  one  of  the  Egyptian  eremites  which  illustrates  the 
matter  in  hand.  Chancing  to  see  a  dancing  girl,  he  was  moved  to  tears.  Being  asked 
the  reason,  he  replied,  That  she  should  be  at  such  pains  to  please  men  in  her  sinful  vo- 
cation :  and  we  in  our  holy  calling  use  so  little  diligence  to  please  God.  Compare  an 
incident  in  the  Life  of  Pelagia  in  Lipomanni  Ada  Sanctorum,  y.  5,  p.  226. 


THE  UNJUST  STEWARD.  343 

for  their  imitation.  We  may  disentangle  a  bad  man's  energy  from  bis 
ambition,  so  far  at  least  as  to  contemplate  them  apart  from  one  another, 
and  may  then  praise  the  one  and  condemn  the  other.  Even  so  our  Lord 
in  the  present  case  disentangles  the  steward's  dishonesty  from  his  pru- 
dence:  the  one  of  course  can  only  have  his  earnest  rebuke, — the  other 
may  be  usefully  extolled  for  the  purpose  of  provoking  his  people  by  em- 
ulation to  a  like  prudence,  which  yet  should  be  at  once  an  holy  prudence, 
and  a  prudence  employed  about  things  of  far  higher  and  more  lasting 
importance.* 

The  next  verse  fully  bears  out  and  confirms  this  view  of  the  Lord's 
meaning  ;  "  For  the  children  of  this  icorld  are  in  their  generation  tciser 
than  the  children  of  light."  Of  course  there  is  the  same  objeclion  to  the 
"  wiser"  here  that  there  was  to  the  ''wisely"  of  the  verse  preceding. 
As  we  saw  that  ought  to  have  been  "  prudently,"  so  this  ought  to  have 
been  "  more  prudent."  f  "  The  children  of  this  world  "  are  evidently 
the  earthly-minded,  the  men  of  the  earth,  those  whose  portion  is  here, 
and  who  look  not  beyond — who  have  adopted  the  world's  maxims,  being 
born  of  the  spirit  of  this  world,  and  not  of  God.  The  phrase  occurs  but 
once  else  in  Scripture,  and  then  in  our  Evangelist,  (xx,  34)  though  the 
term  "  children  of  light"  is  common  also  to  St.  John  (xii.  36,)  and  St. 
Paul  (1  Thess.  v.  5  ;  Ephes.  v.  8).  There  is  good  reason  why  the  faith- 
ful should  be  here  called  by  that  rather  than  by  any  other  name,  for  so 
their  doings,  which  are  deeds  of  light,  done  in  truth  and  in  sincerity, 
even  as  they  are  themselves  sons  of  the  day  and  of  the  light,  are  con- 
trasted with  the  deeds  of  darkness,  the  hidden  things  of  dishonesty,  which 
are  wrought  by  the  children  of  this  world,  and  of  which  this  child  of  the 
present  world,  who  plays  the  chief  part  in  the  parable  before  us,  has  just 
given  a  notable  specimen. 

The  declaration  itself  has  been  differently  understood,  according  as 
the  words  that  are  wanting  to  complete  the  sentence  have  been  differently 
supplied.  Some  complete  it  thus  : — "  The  children  of  this  world  are 
wiser  in  their  generation"  namely,  in  worldly  things,  "  than  the  children 
of  light "  are  in  those  same  worldly  things,  that  is.  Earthly  men  are 
more  prudent  than  spiritual  men  in  earthly  things ;  those  earthly  things 
are  their  element,  their  world  ;  they  are  more  at  home  in  them ;  they 
give  more  thought,  they  bestow  more  labour,  on  these  matters,  and  there- 

*Clarius:  Laudat  ingenium,  damnat  factum.  Augustine's  explanation  (Qucest. 
Erang.,  1.  2,  c.  34)  is  less  satisfactory  :  E  contrario  dicuntur  istae  similitudines,  ut  in- 
telligamus  si  laudari  potuit  ille  h  domino  qui  fraudem  faciebat,  quanto  amplius  placent 
Domino  Deo,  qui  secundum  ejus  praeceptum  ilia  opera  faciunt.  Cf.  Jerome  Ad  Algas., 
Ep.  121,  qu.  6. 

+  It  would  seem  that  exactly  thus  one  of  the  old  Latin  versions  had  astutiores.  (Au- 
gustine, Enarr.  in  Ps.  liii.  2.) 


344  THE  UNJUST  STEWARD. 

fore  succeed  in  them  better :  though  it  be  true  that  this  is  only  as  owls 
see  better  than  eagles — in  the  dark.*  But  it  is  hard  to  see  how  a  gen- 
eral  statement  of  this  kind  bears  on  the  parable,  which  most  are  agreed 
urges  upon  the  Christian,  not  prudence  in  earthly  things  by  the  example 
of  the  worldling's  prudence  in  the  same,  but  rather,  by  the  example  of 
the  worldling's  prudence  in  these  things,  urges  upon  him  prudence  in 
heavenly. 

Others,  then,  are  nearer  the  truth  who  complete  the  sentence  thus : 
"  The  children  of  this  world  are  wiser  in  their  generation"  (in  worldly 
matters)  "than  the  children  of  light"  in  theirs,  that  is,  in  heavenly  mat- 
ters ;  the  children  of  light  being  thus  rebuked  that  they  are  not  at  half 
the  pains  to  win  heaven  which  the  men  of  this  world  are  to  win  earth — 
that  they  are  less  provident  in  heavenly  things  than  those  are  in  earthly 
— that  the  world  is  better  served  by  its  servants  than  God  is  by  his.  This 
is  the  meaning,  as  it  is  rightly,  though  somewhat  too  vaguely,  given  by 
many  ;  for  it  is  only  perfectly  seized  when  we  see  in  the  words,  "  in  their 
generation,"  or  as  they  ought  to  be  translated, — "unto,"  or  "towards 
their  generation,"'!'  an  allusion,  which  has  been  strangely  often  missed, 


*  So  Cajetan  ;  Filii  hujus  saeculi  sunt  filiis  lucis  prudentiores,  non  absolute,  sed  in 
natione  tenebrosa.,  sicut  noctuEE  melius  vident  in  tenebris  anlmalibus  dlurnis. 

t  Ei;  r'nii  ycvcav  Triv  LavTuv,  which  Theophylact  explains  h  tu  /Jiu  tovto)  -.  but  then  he 
has  first  changed  ci;  rhv  ycvtav  into  iv  rfj  ytccS,  and  as  if  it  were  so,  it  is  translated  in  the 
Vulgate,  in  generatione  suS,.  Mr.  Greswell  has  well  shown  {Exp.  of  the  Far.  v.  4,  p. 
52)  how  untenable  such  a  translation  of  the  words  is,  which  indeed,  could  never  have 
been  so  much  as  entertained,  except  on  the  principle  which,  in  the  interpreting  of  Scrip- 
ture, has  been  so  often  adopted, — that  prepositions  have  no  meaning  in  particular,  but 
may  be  made  to  mean  anything  which  it  seems  convenient  for  the  moment  that  they 
should  mean.  It  was  convenient  to  turn  c!s  into  iv,  because  it  seemed  to  give  some 
meaning  to  the  words,  though  not  a  very  satisfactory  one.  But  even  the  convenience 
disappears,  when  we  once  regard  the  debtors  of  the  parable  as  the  men  of  the  same 
ycvca  as  the  steward,  and  that  here  is  allusion  to  them,  for  all  then  is  easy  and  plain, 
and  this  while  there  is  no  force  applied  to  the  words^  and  they  are  allowed  their  full 
rights.  Storr  (Ojuisc.  Acad.,  v.  3,  p.  117)  gives  rightly  the  meaning  of  this  verse  : 
Rebus  terrenis  unic6  inhiantes  (ol  viol  r,  aiwv  r.),  ut  oeconomas  inductus  (v.  1,  3, 
4)  prudentia.  erga  suam  familiam  (h?  r.  yev.  t.  Iovt.),  hoc  est,  erga  idem  sentientes,qui 
pariter  ac  ipsi  sunt  vloi  r.  aUw.  tovt.  erga  fratres  suos,  terrena  simihter  inhiantes  (cf.  v. 
5-7)  antecedere  solent  lucis  ac  beatitatis  sempitemze  (v.  9-12)  cupidos,  qui  saepe  non 
ita  (cf.  V.  4)  student  familiam  suam  (r.  ycv.  r.  lavr.)  hoc  est,  lucis  item  cupidos  (aequ6 
cum  ipsis  vloii  r.  (^urof),  et  Eli  T.  aiuv.  uKrivas  perventuros  (v.  9),  ipsumque  communem 
familia;  Dominum  (Matt.  xxv.  40),  beneficiis  sibi  devincire,  ut  igitur  tanto  magis  fuerit 
opus,  admonitionem  inculcare  qua;  sequiiur,  Luc.  xvi.  9.  Weisse  {Evang.  Gesch.  v.  2, 
p.  161)  translates  the  words  tt'j  r.  yev  t.  iavr.  rightly,  Im  Verkehr  mit  ihres  Gleichen ; 
but  Neander'too  vaguely.  Von  ihrem  Standpunkte. — For  a  masterly  disposal  of  the  loose 
theory  that  tli  and  Iv  are  ever  promiscuously  and  interchangeably  used  in  the  Greek 
Testament,  see  Winer's  Grammatik,  p.  392,  seq. 


THE  UNJUST  STEWARD.  345 

to  the  debtors  in  the  parable.  They,  the  ready  accomplices  in  the  stew- 
ard's fraud,  showed  themselves  to  be  men  of  the  same  generation  as  he 
was, — they  were  all  of  one  race,  children  of  the  ungodly  world  j  and  the 
Lord's  declaration  is,  that  the  men  of  this  world  make  their  intercourse 
with  one  another  more  profitable, — obtain  more  from  it, — manage  it  bet- 
ter for  their  interests,  such  as  those  are,  than  do  the  children  of  light  their 
intercourse  with  one  another.  For  what  opportunities,  he  would  imply, 
are  missed  by  these  last,  by  those  among  them  to  whom  a  share  of  the 
earthly  mammon  is  intrusted, — what  opportunities  of  laying  up  treasure 
in  heaven — of  making  them  friends  for  the  time  to  come  by  showing  love 
to  the  poor  saints, — or  generally  of  doing  offices  of  kindness  to  the  house- 
hold of  faith — to  the  men  of  the  same  generation  as  themselves,  whom 
yet  they  make  not,  as  they  might,  receivers  of  benefits,  from  which  they 
themselves  should  hereafter  reap  an  hundred-fold. 

In  the  following  verse  the  Lord  exhorts  his  disciples  not  to  miss  these 
opportunities,  but  by  the  example  of  him  who  bound  to  himself  by  bene- 
fits the  men  of  his  generation,  so  should  they  in  like  manner,  by  benefits, 
bind  those  who  were  like  themselves  children  of  light,  and  make  friends, 
of  them  J* — "  And  I  say  unto  you,  Make  to  yourselves  friends  of  the  mam- 
mon of  unrighteousness,  that  when  ye  fail,  they  may  receive  you  into  ever- 
lasting habitations. '^  This  ^^  mammon  of  unrighteousness,"  some  explain 
as  wealth  unjustly  gotten,']'  by  fraud  and  by  violence,  "  treasures  of  wick- 
edness ;"  (Prov.  X.  2  ;)  but  plainly  the  first  recommendation  to  the  pos- 
sessors of  such  would  be  to  restore  it  to  its  rightful  owners,  as  Zacchseus, 

*  Yet  at  the  same  time,  who  could  be  entirely  satisfied  with  such  a  summing  up 
of  the  parable  as  that  given  by  Calvin :  Summa  hujus  parabolae  est,  humaniter  et 
benigne  cum  proximis  nostris  esse  agendum,  ut  quum  ad  Dei  tribunal  ventum  fuerit, 
liberalitatis  nostrae  fructus  ad  nos  redeat.  Who  does  not  feel  that  there  must  be  some- 
thing more  in  it  than  merely  this?  for  if  this  only,  why  an  unjust  steward?  This 
is  at  the  same  time  the  point  which  the  early  Church  writers  mainly,  often  exclu- 
sively, make, — that  the  parable  is  an  earnest  exhortation  to  liberal  almsgiving.  So 
Irenaeus  {Con.  Hcer.,  1.  4,  c.  30),  Augustine  (Z)e  Civ.  Dei,  1.  21,  c.  27),  Athanasius, 
Theophylact  ;  so  also  Erasmus,  Luther, — who  says,  "  It  is  a  sermon  on  good  works 
and  especially  against  avarice,  that  men  abuse  not  wealth,  but  therewith  help  poor 
and  needy  people," — and  many  more. 

t  The  words  so  interpreted  would  be  easily  open  to  abuse,  as  though  a  man 
might  compound  with  his  conscience  and  with  God,  and  by  giving  some  small  portion 
of  alms  out  of  unjustly  acquired  wealth,  make  the  rest  clean  unto  him.  Plutarch 
speaks  thus  of  some,  dn-o  kpoavKiai  dcoaiffovi/Tcs,  and  Augustine  affirms  (Ser7n.  113,  c.  2) 
that  such  abuse  of  the  words  was  actually  made  :  Hoc  quidam  male  intelligendo  rapi- 
untres  alienas,  et  aliquid  inde  pauperibus  largiuntur,  et  putunt  se  facere  quodpreeceptum 
est.  Dicunt  enim,  rapere  res  alienas,  mammona  est  iniquitatis :  erogare  inde  aliquid, 
maximfe  egentibus  Sanctis,  hoc  est  facere  amicos  de  mammona  iniquitatis.  Intellectus- 
iste  corrigendus  est,  imo  de  tabulis  cordis  vestri  omnino  delendus  est.. 

23 


346  THE  UNJUST  STEWARD. 

on  his  conversion,  expressed  his  determination  to  do,  (Luke  xix.  8,)  for 
"he  that  sacrificeth  of  a  thing  wrongfully  gotten,  his  offering  is  ridicu- 
lous," (Sirac.  xxxiv.  18  ;  and  seexxxv.  12,)  and  out  of  such  there  could 
never  be  offered  accepted  alms  to  that  God  who  has  said,  "  I  hate  rob- 
bery  for  burnt  offering."  Only  when  this  restoration  is  impossible,* 
which  of  course  must  continually  be  the  case,  could  it  be  lawfully  be- 
stowed upon  the  poor.  Others  again  say  that  it  is  not  exactly  wealth 
which  the  present  possessor  has  unjustly  acquired,  but  that  wealth  which 
from  the  very  nature  of  the  world  and  the  world's  business  can  scarcely 
ever  have  been  gotten  together  without  sin  somewhere, — without  some- 
thing of  the  defilement  of  the  world  from  which  it  was  gathered  clinging 
to  it  ;f  if  not  sin  in  the  present  possessor,  yet  in  some  of  those,  nearer  or 

*  Thus  the  Jewish  Proverb,  Pastorum,  exactorum,  et  publicanorum  restitutio  est 
difficilis. 

t  In  this  sense  Jerome  quotes  the  proverb,  Dives  aut  iniquus  aut  iniqui  hiEres,  as 
illustrative  of  the  parable  :  and  Cajetan  says,  it  is  called  mammon  of  unrighteousness, 
E6  quod  rarae  vel  nullae  sunt  divitioe,  in  quarum  congregatione  seu  conversatione  non 
intervenerit  peccatum,  vel  habentium,  vel  ministrorum,  vel  palrum  seu  avorum.  We 
might  quote  in  this  view,  Sirac.  xxvii.  2  :  "  As  a  nail  sticketh  fast  between  the  joinings 
of  the  stones,  so  doth  sin  stick  close  between  buying  and  selling."  Augustine  {Qutest. 
Evang.,  1.  2,  qu.  34) :  Quia  non  sunt  istee  divitiae  nisi  iniquis,  qui  in  eis  constituunt 
spem  atque  copiam  beatitudinis  suae.  Cf.  jSerm.  50,  c.  4.  TertuUian's  explanation 
{Adv.  Marc,  1  4,  c.  33)  is  a  little  different ;  money  is  so  called  because  the  love  of  it 
is  the  root  of  all  evil :  Injustitiae  enim,  auctorem,  et  dominatorem  totius  seculi  num- 
mum  scimus  omnes ;  Melancthon, — because  of  the  manifold  abuses  that  are  almost 
inseparably  connected  with  it:  Vocat  mammonam  injustam  non  quod  sint  injustfe  par- 
tae  [divitiae],  non  quod  contra  conscientiam  occupatcE  sint,  sed  propter  abusus  multipli- 
ces,  qui  in  hac  infirmitale  humani  generis  sequi  solent.     (See  Eccles.  v.  13.) 

One  would  be  glad  to  find  true  the  assertion  that  mammon,  (which  I  believe  would 
more  correctly  be  spelt  with  a  single  m,)  was  the  name  of  a  Syrian  god,  who  was  wor- 
shipped as  presiding  over  wealth,  in  the  same  way  as  Plutus  is  the  god  of  riches  in  the 
Greek  mythology — for  so  the  antithesis  in  the  words, "  Ve  cannot  serve  God  and 
mammon"  would  come  out  more  strongly, — Ye  cannot  serve  the  true  God  and  an  idol  or 
false  god  at  once.  But  there  is  no  satisfactory  proof  of  the  assertion.  It  is  repeated 
by  Schleusner,  who  makes,  as  usual,  references  which  he  has  evidently  never  verified, 
— one  to  Tertullian,[Ji  Syris  rehgios^  colebetur,  teste  Tertulliano]  who  says  nothing  of 
the  kind,  ^rft).  il/arc,  1.  4,  c.  33,  which  must  be  the  passage  meant:  and  another, 
wliich  being  followed  up,  proves  only  that  an  obscure  grammarian  of  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury said  so.  Neither  Augustine  {De  Serm.  Dom.  in  Mon.,  1.  2,)  nor  Jerome  {Ad 
Algas.,  qu.  6),  who  both  explain  the  word,  give  an  hint  of  the  kind.  All  that  Augus- 
tine says  there,  or  Serm.  113,  c.  2,  is  this  :  Quod  Punici  dicunt  mammon,  Latinfe  lu- 
crum vocatur  :  quod  Hebraei  dicunt  mammona,  Latinfe  divitiae  vocantur, — and  Jerome 
no  more.  The  erroneous  notion  belongs  to  the  middle  ages.  Thus  Pet.  Lombard  (1.  2, 
dist.  6) :  Nomine  daemonis  divitiae  vocantur,  scilicet  Mammona.  Est  enim  Mammon 
nomen  daemonis,  quo  nomine  vocantur  divitiae  secundCim  Syram  linguam. — See  a  good 
note  by  Drusius  in  the  Crit.  Sac,  (in  loc.) 


THE  UNJUST  STEWARD.  347 

more  remote,  from  or  through  whom  he  received  it :  and  so  inheriting 
the  wealth,  he  has  inherited  the  obligation  to  make  good  the  wrongs  com- 
mitted in  the  getting  it  together.  But  the  comparison  with  ver.  12,  where 
"unrighteous  mammon,"  a  phrase  of  course  equivalent  to  ^'mammon  of 
unrighteousness,"  is  set  against  "  true  riches" — these  true  being  evident- 
ly heavenly  enduring  goods,  such  as  neither  fade  nor  fail, — makes  it  far 
more  probable  that  the  "  manunon  of  unrighteousness  "  is  the  uncertain, 
unstable  mammon,  that  which  is  one  man's  to-day,  and  another's  to-mor- 
row ;  which  if  a  man  trust  in,  he  is  sure  to  be  trusting  in  a  vain  and  de- 
ceitful thing,  that  will  sooner  or  later  prove  false  and  betray  his  confi- 
dence, so  that  he  will  find  that  trusting  in  it  he  will  have  trusted  in  a  lie.* 
And  "mammon  of  unrighteousness  "  it  may  in  a  deeper  sense  be  justly 
called,  since  it  is  certain  that  in  all  wealth  a  principle  of  evil  is  implied^ 
for  in  a  perfect  state  of  society — in  a  realized  kingdom  of  God  upon  earth 
— there  would  be  no  such  thing  as  property  belonging  to  one  man  more 
than  another.  In  the  moment  of  the  Church's  fii'st  love,'when  that  kingdom 
was  for  an  instant  realized,  "  all  that  believed  were  together,  and  had  all 
things  common  jf  and  this  existence  of  property  has  ever  been  so  strong- 
ly felt  as  a  witness  for  the  selfishness  of  man,  that  in  all  ideas  of  a  per- 
fect commonwealth, — which,  if  perfect,  must  of  course  be  a  Church  as 
well  as  a  State — from  Plato's  down  to  the  Socialists',  this  of  the  commu- 
nion of  goods  has  made  a  necessary  condition.  So  that  though  the  pos- 
sessor of  the  wealth,  or  those  who  transmitted  it  to  him,  may  have  fairly 
acquired  it,  yet  it  is  not  less  this  "  unrighteous'^  mammon,  witnessing  in  its 
very  existence  as  one  man's  and  not  every  man's,  for  the  corruption  and 
fall  and  selfishness  of  man, — for  the  absence  of  that  highest  love,  which 
would  have  made  each  man  feel  that  whatever  was  his,  was  also  every 
one's  beside,  and  rendered  it  impossible  that  a  mine  and  thine  should  ever 

*  The  use  of  aiiKui  for  "  false"  runs  through  the  whole  Septuagint.  Tlius,  Deut. 
xix.  16,  fidprvs  liSiKog,  a  false  witness  ;  and  ver.  18,  iiiapTvpnatv  liSiKa,  he  hath  witnessed 
falsely.  See  Prov.  vi.  19;  xii.  17;  Jer.  v.  31,  "The  prophets  prophesy  falsely," 
(liStKa,)  and  many  more  examples  might  be  adduced.  So  here  the  "  unrighteous" 
mammon  is  the  false  mammon,  that  which  will  betray  the  reliance  which  is  placed  on 
it,  which  we  must  leave,  or  which  will  leave  us.  (Prov.  xxiii.  5.)  Thus  iarpol  a&iKoi, 
(Job  xiii.  4,)  "  physicians  of  no  value."  So  our  Lord  speaks  of  the  d-narn  tov  tt\ovtov  ; 
and  Paul  (1  Tim.  vi.  17)  bids  Timothy  to  warn  the  rich  that  they  trust  not  Iki  n\ovTov 

dSriXorrjTi. 

t  Augustine  :  In  animam  unam  et  cor  unum  conflati  caritatis  igne,  quorum  nemo 
dicebat  aliquid  proprium :  and  Enarr.  in  Ps.  Ixviii.  he  explains  "  mam7non  of  un- 
righteousness :"  Fortasse  ea  ipsa  est  iniquitas  quia  tu  habes  et  alter  non  habet,  tu 
abundus  et  alter  eget ;  as  he  says  elsewhere  in  the  same  spirit :  Res  alienee  possidentur, 
cum  superfluBB  possidentur.  Thus  Aquinas :  Divitise  iniquitatis,  i.  e.  inaequalitatis ;  of 
which  one  has  so  much,  and  another  so  little. 


348  THE  UNJUST  STEWARD. 

have  existed.  With  all  this,  we  must  not  of  course  forget  that  the  at- 
tempt prematurely  to  realize  this  or  any  other  little  fragment  or  corner 
of  the  kingdom  of  God,  apart  from  the  rest — the  corruption  and  evil  of 
man's  heart  remaining  unremoved,  and  being  either  overlooked  or  denied 
— has  ever  been  one  of  the  most  fruitful  sources  of  the  worst  mischiefs 
in  the  world. 

The  words,  ^' that  when  ye  fail,"*  are  of  course  an  euphemistic  way 
of  saying,  "  that  when  ye  die."  Many,  however,  have  been  unwilling  to 
refer  the  words  that  follow,  ''they  may  receive  you,"  to  the  friends  which 
were  to  be  made  by  help  of  the  unrighteous  mammon  ;  such  an  applica- 
tion seeming  to  them  to  attribute  too  much  to  men  and  to  their  interces- 
sion, to  imply  a  right  on  their  parts  who  had  received  the  benefits,  to 
introduce  their  ben3factor3  into  everlasting  habitations, — and  so  to  be 
trenchincr  on  the  prerogative  which  is  God's  alone.  Thus  it  has  been 
sometimes  said  "they"  are  the  angels,  as  we  find  angels  (ver.  22)  car- 
ryin<T  Lazarus  into  Abraham's  bosom ;  or  others  understand  that  it  is 
God  and  Christ  who  it  is  meant  will  receive ;  others  again  say,  that  the 
phrase  is  impersonal,  even  as  it  is  certain  that  St.  Luke  more  than  once 
uses  the  plural  impersonally  (xii.  11,  20;  xxiii.  31),  so  that  "  they  may 
receive  you,"  would  be  equivalent  to,  "You  may  be  received."  But  if 
we  look  at  this  verse,  not  as  containing  an  isolated  doctrine,  but  as 
standino-  in  close  and  living  connexion  with  the  parable  which  has  just 
preceded  it,  and  of  which  it  gives  the  moral,  we  shall  at  once  perceive 
how  this  phrase  comes  here  to  be  used,  and  its  justification.     There  is 

*  It  may  perhaps  be  a  question  whether  the  other  reading,  tffXiV^,  ("  that  when  it 
fails,"  i.  e.y  the  mammon,)  be  not  to  be  preferred.  It  is  decidedly  so  by  Schulz  {Uh.  d. 
Par.  V.  Verwalter,  p.  81),  though  he  allows  that  as  regards  number  of  MSS.  it  is  support- 
ed by  inferior  authority.  Many  however  of  the  oldest  versions  bear  witness  for  that  read- 
ing which  Lachniann  has  also  admitted  into  his  text ;  yet  not  the  Vulgate,  which  has, 
cum  defecerilis,  nor  yet  the  older  Latin,  (Iren^eus,  Con.  Hoer.,  1.  4,  c.  49,)  quando  fugati 
fueritis.  We  certainly  have  more  than  one  word  of  the  same  family,  to  show  how  fitly 
iK^eiTTCtv  might  be  used  in   the  sense  which  would  thus  be  given  it :  thus  dniravpdv  dv- 

ckI^utttov ,  (Luke    xii.    33,)    avSK'Ki-nhi    OrjcriivpiU,  (Wisd.    vii.  14,)    nXoiro;    di'EvXcr^J,  (Wisd. 

viii.  16.)  But  on  the  oiher  hand  it  may  be  said  that  UXci-rciv  is  also  frequently  used  for 
the  failing  of  men  through  death  from  the  earth,  of  which  any  Lexicon  of  the  Septua- 
gint  will  supply  many  examples.  Should  wXiVr/  be  preferred,  the  words  of  Seneca  (De 
Benef.,  1.  6,  c.  3)  will  afford  a  striking  parallel :  Egregife  mihi  videtur  M.  Antonius 
apud  Uabirium  poetam,  cum  fortunam  suam  transeuntem  alio  videbat  et  sibi  nihil  re- 
lictum  .  .  .  exclamare :  Hoc  habeo,  quodcumque  dedi.  0  quantum  habere  potuit,  ei 
voluisset !  Hae  sunt  divitiae  ccrtae,  in  quiicunque  sortis  humanae  levitate,  uno  loco  per- 
mansurffi  :  qua;  quo  majores  fuerint,  hoc  minorem  habebunt  invidiam.  Quid  tanquam 
tuo  parcis  1  Procurator  es  .  .  .  Qua;ris  quomodo  ilia  tua  facias  1  donando.  Consule 
ergo  rebus  tuis  et  certam  tibi  earum  et  inexpugnabilem  possessionem  para ;  honesti- 
ores  illas  non  solum,  sed  tutiorcs  facturus. 


THE  UNJUST  STEWARD.  349 

plainly  allusion  here  to  the  debtors ;  they,  being  made  friends,  were  to 
receive  the  deposed  steward  into  temporary  habitations  ;  and  the  present 
phrase  is  an  echo  of  what  had  just  gone  before  in  regard  to  him  and 
them,  by  using  which  in  his  practical  application  of  the  parable,  our 
Lord  throws  back  light  upon  that,  and  at  once  fixes  the  attention  of  his 
hearers  upon,  and  explains,  its  most  important  part.  It  is  idle  to  press 
the  words  further,  and  against  all  analogy  of  faith  to  assert,  on  the 
strength  of  this  single  phrase,  that  with  any  except  God,  that  even  with 
his  glorified  saints,  there  will  reside  power  of  their  own  to  admit  into  the 
kingdom  of  heaven;  but  idle  too,  on  the  other  hand  to  affirm,  that  "  they 
may  receive  you,"  in  the  second  clause  of  the  sentence,  can  refer  to  any 
other  but  the  friends  mentioned  in  the  first — which  no  one,  unless 
alarmed  by  the  consequences  which  others  might  draw  from  the  words, 
could  possibly  for  an  instant  call  in  question.*  The  true  parallel  to, 
and  at  once  the  explanation  and  the  guard  of,  this  passage,  is  evidently 
Matt.  XXV.  34-40.  The  heavenly  habitations  being  termed  "  everlast- 
ing"] are  thus  tacitly  contrasted  with  the  temporary  shelter  which  was 
all  that  the  steward,  the  child  of  the  present  world,  procured  for  himself 
with  all  his  plotting  and  planning,  his  cunning  and  his  dishonesty, — 
also,  it  may  be,  with  the  temporary  stewardship  which  every  man  exer- 

f*  Cocceius:  Acfcoj/rai  posset  intelligi  impersonaliter,  .  .  .  sed  filum  parabolas  pos- 
tulat  ut  referatur  ad  amicos.  Non  quod  homines  suis  meritis  possint  recipere  in  ajter- 
na  tabernacula,  sed  quod  filiis  Dei  Ifetantibus,  applaudentibus,  et  in  Deo  ac  Spiritu 
ejus  volentibus,  a,  Deo  recipiantur  ii,  qui  amici  ipsoruin  esse  voluerint.  Voluntas  jus- 
torum  et  beatorum  est  efficax,  quia  est  (ppi>i>rijxa  tov  -KvcijiaTOi,  Rom.  viii.  27.  Cf.  Au- 
gustine, QucBst.  Evang.,  1.  2,  qu.  38  ;  and  Gerhard  {Loc.  TheolL,  loc.  27,  c.  8,  §  3) : 
Recipiunt  nos  turn  precibus  in  hac  vita,  tum  testimonio  ac  suffragio  in  die  judicii. 

t  These  aidjvioi,  those  npoaKi'ipoi.  The  term  trKnvri,  the  tent  which  was  pitched  at 
evening  and  struck  in  the  morning,  or  the  temporary  booth  (Lev.  xxiii.  40-43)  erected 
with  planks  and  branches,  itself  implies  anything  but  a  fixed  and  lasting  habitation  ; 
on  the  contrary,  it  is  directly  set  against  such,  Heb.  xi.  9,  10,  where  it  is  said  that 
Abraham  dwelt  in  tabernacles  ((TKrivaTi),  while  he  looked  for  a  city  which  hath  foun- 
dations. And  the  image  from  the  unstable  aKrivn  is  used  by  Hezekiah  to  set  forth 
the  briefness  of  life  (Isai.  xxxviii.  12) :  "  Mine  age  is  departed,  and  is  removed  from 
me  as  a  shepherd's  tent."  See  .Tob  xxvii.  18;  2  Cor.  v.  1.  Thus  too  the  tempo- 
rary sojourning  of  the  Son  of  God  on  the  earth  is  a  a/oji'oOi',  (John  i.  14  )  But  these 
cKrjvai  are  aiwi/iot,  they  are  ^omi,  (John  xiv.  2),  being  pitched  by  God,  "  a  tabernacle 
that  shall  not  be  taken  down,"  {cKrivai  al  oi  it!)  cretaOdJatv,  LXX.),  "  not  one  of  the 
stakes  thereof  shall  ever  be  removed,  neither  shall  any  of  the  cords  thereof  be  broken." 
(Isai.  xxxiii.  20.)  It  is  not  accurate  to  adduce  2  Cor.  v.  1  here  as  a  parallel,  for 
the  "  building  of  God,  the  house  not  made  with  hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens,"  of 
which  St.  Paul  there  speaks,  is  plainly  not  the  abiding  heavenly  mansions,  but  the 
glorified  body,  as  contrasted  with  "  our  earthly  house  of  this  tabernacle,"  or  our  pres- 
ent body,  TO  yciHSss  oKfjvosj  as  it  is  called,  Wisd.  ix.  15. 


350  THE  UNJUST  STEWARD. 

cises  on  earth,  from  which  it  is  not  long  before  he  fails  and  is  removed : 
— how  important  it  is  therefore,  the  word  will  imply,  'that  he  should 
make  sure  his  entrance  into  a  kingdom  that  shall  not  be  moved.* 

In  the  verses  which  follow  (10-13),  and  which  stand  in  vital  cohe- 
rence with  the  parable,  it  is  very  observable  that  not  prudence,  but 
faithfulness,  in  the  dispensation  of  the  things  earthly  is  especially  com- 
mended ;  so  to  put  far  away  any  possible  abuse  of  the  parable,  as  though 
the  unfaithfulness  of  the  steward  there  could  have  found  anything  but 
the  strongest  reprobation  from  Christ;  just  as  in  another  place,  (Matt. 
X.  16,)  when  he  said,  "  Be  wise  as  serpents,"  lest  this  wisdom  should 
degenerate  into  cunning,  he  immediately  guarded  the  precept,  adding, 
"  and  harmless  as  doves."  The  things  earthly  whereof  men  have  a  dis- 
pensation, and  wherein  they  may  show  their  faithfulness  and  their  fit- 
ness to  be  intrusted  with  an  higher  stewardship,  are  slightingly  called, 
'Hhat  which  is  least,''  as  compared  with  those  spiritual  gifts  and  graces 
which  are  '^much;"  they  are  termed  ^^unrighteous,''  or  deceitful, 
"mammon,"  as  set  against  the  heavenly  riches  of  faith  and  love,  which 
are  ^' true  "  and  durable  "riches  ;"  they  are  called  "that  lohich  is  an- 
other man's,"-\  by  comparison  with  the  heavenly  goods,  which  when 
possessed  are  our  own,  not  something  merely  without  us,  but  which 
become  a  part  of  our  very  selves,  assimilating  to  our  truest  life.  Thus 
the  Lord  at  once  casts  a  slight  on  the  things  worldly  and  temporal, 
while  yet  at  the  same  time  he  magnifies  the  importance  of  a  right  ad- 
ministration of  them ;  since  in  the  dispensing  of  these, — which  he 
declares  to  be  the  least, — to  be  false  and  without  any  intrinsic  worth, — 
to  be  alien  from  man's  essential  being,  he  yet  also  declares  that  a  man 
may  prove  his  fidelity,  will  inevitably  show  what  is  in  him,  and  whether 
he  be  fit  to  be  intrusted  with  that  which  has  a  true  and  enduring  value, 
with  a  ministration  in  the  kingdom  of  God.:{:  And  in  ver.  13  he  further 
states  what  the  fidelity  is,  which  in  this  stewardship  is  required : — it  is 
a  choosing  of  God  instead  of  mammon  for  our  lord.  For  in  this  world 
we  are  in  the  condition  of  servants  from  whom  two  masters  are  claiming 


*  So  according  to  Diodoru3  Siculus  the  Egyptians  called  the  houses  of  the  living 
KoraXtxTti?,  but  of  the  dead  aiSiovi  oiVouf.  Compare  Eccles.  xii.  5,  "  Man  goeth  to 
his  long  home."      (oIkov  ai<2vos  avroii.  LXX.) 

t  Divitiae  non  verae  nee  vestrse,  as  Augustine  terms  them. 

t  The  Jews  have  various  sayings  and  parables  concerning  the  manner  in  which  God 
proves  men  in  little  things,  to  try  whether  they  are  worthy  to  be  intrusted  with  great. 
Thus  they  say  of  David,  that  God  tried  him  first  with  "  those  few  sheep  in  the  wilder- 
ness," which  because  he  faithfully  and  boldly  kept,  (I  Sam.  xvii.  .34-36,)  therefore  God 
"  took  him  from  the  sheepfolds  to  feed  Jacob  his  people,  and  Israel  his  inheritance." 
(Ps.  Ixxviii.  70,  71.)     See  Schoettgen's  Hor.  Hcb.  v.  1,  p.  300. 


THE  UNJUST  STEWARD.  35X 

allegiance — one  is  God,  man's  rightful  lord,  the  other  is  this  unrighteous 
mammon,  which  was  given  to  be  our  servant,  to  be  wielded  by  us  in 
God's  interests,  and  in  itself  to  be  considered  by  us  as  something  slight, 
transient,  and  another's — but  which  has,  in  a  sinful  world,  erected  itself 
into  a  lord,  and  now  demands  obedience  from  us,  which  if  we  yield, 
we  can  be  no  longer  faithful  servants  and  stewards  of  God's.  We 
shall  no  longer  lay  out  according  to  his  will  that  which  he  indeed 
gave  us  to  be  merely  a  thing  beneath  us,  but  which  we  have  allowed  to 
have  a  will  and  a  voice  of  its  own,  and  to  speak  to  us  in  accents  of 
command.  We  cannot  any  longer  be  faithful  servants  of  God,  for  that 
upstart  lord  has  a  will  so  different  from  his  will,  gives  commands  so 
opposite  to  his,  that  occasions  must  speedily  arise  when  one  or  other  will 
have  to  be  slighted,  despised,  and  disobeyed,  if  the  other  be  regarded, 
honoured,  and  served  ;* — God,  for  instance,  will  command  a  scattering, 
when  mammon  will  urge  to  a  further  heaping  and  gathering  ;  God  will 
require  spending  upon  others,  when  mammon,  or  the  world,  a  spending 
upon  our  own  lusts.  Therefore,  these  two  lords  having  characters  so 
different,  and  giving  commands  so  opposite,  it  will  be  impossible  to  re- 
concile their  service  (Jam.  iv.  4) — one  must  be  despised,  if  the  other  is 
held  to  ;  the  only  faithfulness  to  the  one  is  to  break  with  the  other ; 
"  Ye  cannot  serve  f  God  and  mammon."  Such  appears  to  me  to  be  the 
connexion  between  ver.  13  and  the  preceding  verses,  and  between  the 
whole  of  these  verses  and  the  parable  of  which  they  surely  are  intended 
to  give  the  moral. f 

*  Stella  has  a  lively  comparison  in  illustration  of  this:  Si  duobus  hominibus  aliquS, 
vi&,  incedentibus  canis  sequitur,  non  facile  judicare  poteris  uter  illorum  Dominus  ejus 
sit.  Caeterum  si  alter  ab  altero  discedat,  statim  apparet  clarissimfe  quis  Dominus  sit. 
Canis  enim,  ignoto  relicto,  ad  notum  accedit,  eumque  Dominum  esse  suura  clarfe  os- 
tendit. 

t  AoiiXrfcii/,  to  which  word  its  full  force  is  to  be  given,  a  force  which  Chrysostom  ex- 
cellently brings  out,  when  after  noting  how  Abraham  aad  Job  were  rich,  and  yet  found 
favour  with  God,  he  goes  on  to  observe  that  it  was  because  each  of  these  though  rich, 
OVK  iSovXsae  tcj  fianfioiva,  uAX'  ciycv  (Ivtov  koX  CKparct  Kal  ScaTTo-ri;  [airov^  ov  SoiXog  iji/.  SeC' 
also  SuiCER,  S.  V.  6ov\cvoj. 

t  Among  the  many  strange  explanations  to  which  this  parable  has  given  birth,  per- 
haps one  of  the  strangest  is  recorded  by  Jerome  {Ad  Algas.,Ep.  121,  qu.  6),  who  quotes 
it  from  the  Commentaries  of  Theophilus,  bishop  of  Antioch.  According  to  this,  the  un- 
just steward  is  the  apostle  Paul,  who  was  forcibly  thrust  out  by  God  of  his  Judaism,  and 
being  so,  made  himself  a  reception  in  many  hearts,  through  the  declaring  the  Gospel  of'" 
the  grace  of  God, — of  the  remission  of  sins;  and  for  this  had  praise,  that  he  had  welii 
done,  "being  changed  from  the  austerity  of  the  Law  to  the  clemency  of  the  Gospel."' 
But  I  see  that  elsewhere  {Be  Script.  Eccles.)  Jerome  doubts  the  genuineness  of  the' 
Commentaries  extant  in  his  time  under  the  name  of  Theophilus.  This  is  only  outdone 
by  a  modern  writer  mentioned  by  Unger   (Be  Par.  Jes.  Nat.,  p.  85),  who  affirms  the 


352  THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS. 


PARABLE  XXVI. 


THE    RICH    MAN     AND    LAZARUS. 

LrKE  xvi.  19-31. 

It  must  be  acknowledged  that  the  connexion  of  verses  15-18  with  one 
another,  and  of  all  with  this  parable,  is  not  easy  to  trace,  while  yet  to 
say,  as  Hammond  and  others  do,  that  St.  Luke  has  here  thrown  toge- 
ther various  sayings  of  our  Lord's,  uttered  on  very  different  occasions, 
is  a  most  unsatisfactory  explanation  ; — for  what  should  they  do  here  ?  or 
how  have  they  come  to  be  here  introduced  ?  But  however  loosely  strung 
together,  at  first  sight,  verses  15-18  may  appear,  there  is  a  thread  of 
connexion  running  through  them  all,  and  afterwards  joining  them  with 
the  parable, — there  is  one  leading  thought  throughout,  namely  that  in 
all  is  contained  rebuke  and  threatening  for  the  Pharisees.  They  had 
heard  the  Lord's  exhortation  to  a  large  and  liberal  bounty,  his  warning 
to  his  disciples  that  they  should  not  attempt  to  serve  at  once  God  and 
the  world, — and  they  testified  by  look  and  gesture,  and  it  may  be  also 
openly  in  words,  their  dislike  of  the  doctrine,  and  scorn  of  the  teacher  ; 
— "  The  Pharisees  also,  who  were  covetous,  heard  all  these  things,  and 
they  derided  him."*  Whereupon  he  turned  and  addressed  to  them  the 
discourse,  which  had  hitherto  been  to  the  disciples,  and  rebuked,  first 
their  hypocrisy  ; — while  they  were  covetous,f  that  is,  while  their  hearts 
were  secretly  given  to  the  world,  they  yet  would  be  accounted  to  love 

Lord  to  have  meant  himself  by  the  unjust  steward !  It  sounds  almost  irreverent  to 
mention  in  immediate  juxtaposition  with  this,  that  Pontius  Pilate  and  Judas  Iscariot 
tave  been  proposed  as  the  persons  by  him  represented.  But  the  meanest  and  most 
grovelling  of  all  expositions  is  given  by  Hartmann  {Conun.  dr.  CEcon.  Improho,  Lips. 
1830),  of  which  it  will  suffice  to  say  that  the  author  explains  ver.  16  to  mean  this  :  Make 
to  yourselves  friends  of  those  that  are  rich  in  this  world,  (this  is  his  interpretation  of 
'EK  T.  iiofi  T.  (ifli/f.,)  that  when  through  any  mishap  you  get  low  in  the  world,  you  may 
;be  sure  of  a  retreat  for  the  remainder  of  your  days.  In  Wor.F's  Curca,  and  Kocher's 
■Analecta,  other  extravagant  interpretations  may  be  found,  which  it  would  be  little  worth 
nvhile  to  repeat. 

*  'Ei^CfiVKTrtpi^ov  avr6u. 

t  The  (pi\apyvpia  here  attributed  to  the  Pharisees  is  to  be  taken  in  that  widest  and 
deepest  sense,  in  which  it  is  the  fi^a  vii'Tcov  rHi/  KaKuiv,  (1  Tim.  vi.  10,)  the  dependence 
apon  and  trust  in  the  world  rather  than  in  God. 


THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS.  353 

God  above  all  things, — they  sought  a  reputation  for  holiness  and  right- 
eousness before  men;  but  he  proceeds,  highly  esteemed  as  they  were 
among  men,  they  and  their  pretences  were  abomination  before  God, 
who  knoweth  the  hearts.  It  is  then  announced  to  them  (ver.  16)  how 
that  dispensation,  of  which  they  were  the  stewards  and  administrators, 
was  passing  away  ;  "  The  law  and  the  prophets  were  unto  John  ;"  their 
stewardship  is  coming  to  an  end,  and  a  larger  dispensation,  in  which 
they  shall  no  more  have  "  the  key  of  knowledge  "  to  admit  or  to  ex- 
clude, is  begun  :  "  The  kingdom  of  God  is  preached,  and  every  man 
presseth  into  it."  Yet  not  that  the  law  itself  was  to  be  abolished,  for  that 
would  be  eternal  as  the  God  that  gave  it  (ver.  17,)  being  the  expression 
of  his  perfections  and  holy  will :  which  when  it  was  so,  how  great  was 
their  guilt,  who,  while  they  pretended  to  be  zealous  for  its  honour,  the 
guardians  of  its  purity,  were  continually  tampering  with  it  in  some  of 
its  most  sacred  enactments,  as  in  those  concerning  marriage  (ver.  18)5 
and  relaxing  its  obligations ;  and  thereupon  the  parable  follows. 

But  that  being  evidently  addressed  to  the  Pharisees,  a  difficulty  at 
once  presents  itself.  They  were,  indeed,  "  covetous  "  (ver.  14),  lovers 
of  money,  but  prodigal  excess  in  living,  like  that  of  the  rich  man,  is  no- 
where, either  in  history  or  in  Scripture,  imputed  to  them.  On  the  con- 
trary, we  learn  from  cotemporary  historical  *  sources,  that  they  were 
remarkably  sparing  and  abstemious  in  their  manner  of  life,  many  of 
them  rigid  ascetics  :  and  among  all  the  severe  rebukes  which  our  Lord 
addressed  to  them,  the  sin  of  luxury  and  prodigal  excess  is  nowhere  laid 
to  their  charge.  Their  sins  were  in  the  main  spiritual,  and  what  other 
sins  they  had  were  such  as  were  compatible  with  an  high  reputation  for 
spirituality,  which  covetousness  is,  but  a  profuse  self-indulgence  and  an 
eminently  luxurious  living  is  not.  Mosheim  feels  the  difficulty  so 
strongly,  that  he  supposes  the  parable  to  have  been  directed  against  the 
Sadducees,'!'  of  whose  selfish  indulgence  of  themselves,  and  hard-heart- 
ed contempt  for  the  needs  of  others,  (for  they  had  wrought  into  their 
very  religious  scheme  that  poverty  was  a  crime,  or  at  least  an  evidence 
of  the  displeasure  of  God,)  he  says  we  ^hall  then  have  an  exact  descrip- 
tion. But  the  parable  cannot  be  for  them,  there  is  nothing  to  make  it 
probable  that  Sadducees  were  present,  neither  can  there  be  any  change 
between  ver.  18  and  19  in  the  persons  addressed  ;  this  will  appear  yet 

*  Josephus  {Antt.,  xviii.  1,  3)  says  of  them,  rhv  Siatrav  i^evrcyii^ovciv,  ov&h  is  Td 
jAoXaKciTcpov  cvSi66vT£i,  and  that  the  Sadducees  mocked  them  for  their  fasts  and  austeri- 
ties. 

t  De  Reh.  Christ,  ante  Const.,  p.  49.  So  also  Wetstein,  who  says  of  the  Pharisees, 
jejunabant  crebro,  modsstius  vestiebantur.  This  frequent  fasting  (Luke  xviii.  12,)  could 
not  be  reconciled  with  the  faring  sumptuously  every  day. 


354  THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS. 

more  evident  in  the  original  than  in  our  version,  which  has  omitted  the 
particle  which  marks  the  continuity  and  unbroken  tenor  of  the  discourse, 
and  to  give  the  force  of  which,  the  parable  ought  to  begin  not  simply, 
"  There  was,"  but,  ''Now  there  was  a  certain  rich  man." 

The  explanation,  however,  seems  to  be  the  following.  While  it  is 
quite  true  that  covetousness  was  the  sin  of  the  Pharisees,  and  not  prodi- 
gal excess  in  living,  while  it  was  rather  an  undue  gathering,  than  an 
undue  spending,  yet  hoarding  and  squandering  so  entirely  grow  out  of 
the  same  evil  root,  are  so  equally  the  consequences  of  unbelief  in  God 
and  in  God's  word — of  trust  in  the  creature  rather  than  in  the  Creator, 
are  so  equally  a  serving  of  mammon  (though  the  form  of  the  service 
may  be  different),  that  when  the  Lord  would  rebuke  their  sin,  which 
was  the  love  of  the  world  and  trust  in  the  world  rather  than  in  the  liv- 
ing God,  there  was  nothing  to  hinder  his  taking  his  example  from  a  sin 
opposite  in  appearance  to  theirs — which  yet  was  one  springing  out  of 
exactly  the  same  evil  condition  of  heart, — by  which  to  condemn  them. 
For  it  ought  never  to  be  left  out  of  sight  or  forgotten,  that  it  is  not  the 
primary  purpose  of  the  parable  to  teach  the  fearful  consequences  which 
will  follow  on  the  abuse  of  wealth  and  on  the  hard-hearted  contempt  of 
the  poor, — this  only  subordinately, — but  the  fearful  consequences  of  un- 
belief, of  having  the  heart  set  on  this  world,  and  refusing  to  give  cre- 
dence to  the  invisible  world  which  is  here  known  only  to  faith,  until  by 
a  miserable  and  too  late  experience  the  existence  of  such  an  unseen 
world  has  been  discovered.  The  sin  of  Dives  in  its  root  is  unbelief: 
hard-hearted  contempt  of  the  poor,  luxurious  squandering  on  self,  are 
only  the  forms  which  it  takes  ;  the  seat  of  the  disease  is  within,  these 
are  but  the  running  sores  which  witness  for  the  inward  plague.  He  who 
believes  not  in  an  invisible  world  of  righteousness  and  truth  and  spirit- 
ual joy,  must  of  necessity  place  his  hope  in  the  things  which  he  sees, 
which^e  can  touch,  and  taste,  and  smell, — will  come  to  trust  in  them, 
and  to  look  to  them  for  his  blessedness,  for  he  knows  of  no  other :  it  is 
not  of  the  essence  of  the  matter,  whether  he  hoards  or  squanders,  in 
either  case  he  sets  his  hope  on  tjje  world.  He  who  believes  not  in  a  God 
delighting  in  mercy  and  loving-kindness,  and  that  will  be  an  abundant 
rewarder  of  them  that  have  showed  mercy,  and  severe  punisher  of  all 
that  have  refused  to  show  it,  will  soon  come  to  shut  up  his  bowels  of 
compassion  from  his  brethren,  whether  that  so  he  may  place  more  money 
in  his  chest,  or  have  more  to  spend  upon  his  own  lusts.  This  was  the 
sin  of  Dives  and  the  origin  of  all  his  other  sins,  that  he  believed  not  in 
this  higher  world,  which  is  apprehended  by  faith, — a  world  not  merely 
beyond  the  grave, — but  a  kingdom  of  God,  a  kingdom  of  truth  and  love 
existing  even  in  the  midst  of  this  cruel  and  wicked  world  ;  and  this  too 


THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS.  ggg 

was  the  sin  of  the  worldly-minded  Pharisees:  and  his  punishment  was, 
that  he  made  the  discovery  of  the  existence  of  that  truer  state  of  things 
only  to  his  own  unutterable  and  irremediable  loss.  His  unbelief  shows 
itself  again  in  his  supposing  that  his  brethren  would  give  heed  to  a  ghost, 
while  they  refused  to  give  heed  to  the  sure  word  of  God, — to  Moses  and 
the  prophets.  For  it  is  of  the  very  essence  of  unbelief,  that  it  gives  that 
credence  to  portents  and  prodigies  which  it  refuses  to  the  truth  of  God. 
Caligula,  who  mocked  at  the  existence  of  the  gods,  would  hide  himself 
under  a  bed  when  it  thundered  ;*  and  superstition  and  incredulity  are 
evermore  twin  brothers.  It  is  most  important  to  keep  in  mind  that  this, 
the  rebuke  of  unbelief,  is  the  aim  and  central  thought  of  the  parable  ; 
for  if  we  conceive  of  its  primary  purpose  as  to  warn  against  the  abuse 
of  riches,  it  will  neither  satisfactorily  cohere  with  the  discourse  in  which 
it  is  found,  nor  will  the  parable  itself  possess  that  unity  of  purpose,  that 
tending  of  all  its  parts  to  a  single  centre,  which  so  remarkably  distin- 
guishes the  other  parables  of  our  Lord :  it  will  seem  to  divide  itself  into 
two  parts,  which  are  only  slightly  linked  together, — to  have  not  a  single 
but  a  double  point. f  But  when  we  pierce  deeper  into  the  heart  of  the 
matter,  and  contemplate  unbelief  as  the  essence  of  the  rich  man's  sin, 
and  his  hard-heartedness  towards  others  with  his  prodigality  towards 
himself  only  as  the  forms  in  which  it  showed  itself,  we  shall  then  at 
once  admire  the  perfect  unity  of  all  its  parts,  and  the  vital  connexion  of 
the  conversation  with  Abraham  in  the  latter  part,  with  the  sumptuous 
fare,  the  "purple  and  fine  linen,"  of  the  earlier. 

But  before  proceeding  to  examine  the  parable  in  its  details,  it  is  wor- 
thy of  notice,  that  besides  the  literal  and  obvious,  there  has  also  ever  been 
an  allegorical  interpretation  of  it,  which,  though  at  no  time  the  dominant 
one  in  the  Church,  has  frequently  made  itself  heard,  and  which  has  been 
suggested  by  Augustine,  by  Gregory  the  Great,  by  Theophylact,  and  by 
more  modern  commentators  than  one.  According  to  this  the  parable, 
like  so  many  others  exclusively  given  by  St.  Luke,  sets  forth  the  past 
and  future  relations  of  the  Jew  and  Gentile.  Dives  is  the  Jew,  or  the 
Jewish  nation,  clothed  in  the  purple  of  the  king  and  the  fine  linen  of  the 
priest,  the  "  kingdom  of  priests."  He  fares  sumptuously, — that  is,  the 
Jews  are  richly  provided  with  all  spiritual  privileges,  not  hungering  and 
thirsting  after  the  righteousness  of  God,  but  full  of  their  own  righteous- 
ness ;  and  who,  instead  of  seeking  to  impart  their  own  blessings  to  the 

*  Suetonius,  Caligula,  c.  51. 

t  One  of  the  latest  impugners  of  the  accuracy  of  the  Evangelical  records,  as  we 
possess  them,  (Weisse,  Evang.  Gesch.,  v.  2,  p.  168,)  has  brought  forward  this  very 
objection,  only  showing  thereby  how  entirely  he  has  himself  failed  to  enter  into  the 
spirit  of  the  parable. 


356  THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS. 

Gentiles — to  the  miserable  Lazarus  that  lay  covered  with  sores  at  their 
gate — rather  glorified  themselves  by  comparison  in  their  exclusive  pos- 
session of  the  knowledge  and  favour  of  God.  To  them  is  announced — 
that  is,  to  the  Pharisees,  who  might  be  considered  as  the  representatives 
of  the  nation,  for  in  them  all  that  was  evil  in  the  Jewish  spirit  was  con- 
centrated— that  an  end  is  approaching,  nay,  has  come  upon  them  alrea- 
dy  :  Lazarus  and  Dives  are  both  to  die — the  former  state  of  things  is  to 
be  utterly  abolished.  Lazarus  is  to  be  carried  by  angels  into  Abraham's 
bosom — in  other  words,  the  believing  Gentiles  are  to  be  brought  by  the 
messengers  of  the  new  covenant  into  the  peace  and  consolations  of  the 
Gospel.  But  Dives  is  to  be  cast  into  hell, — the  Jews  are  to  forfeit  all 
the  privileges  which  they  abused,  and  will  find  themselves  in  the  most 
miserable  condition,  exiles  from  the  presence  of  God,  and  with  his  wrath 
abiding  upon  them  to  the  uttermost,  so  that  they  shall  seek  in  vain  for 
some,  even  the  slightest,  alleviation  of  their  woful  estate. 

If  the  present  had  been  expressly  named  a  parable,  it  would  tend 
somewhat  to  confirm  this  or  some  similar  interpretation  ;*  for  according  to 
that  commonly  received,  it  is  certainly  no  parable,  the  very  essence  of 
that  order  of  composition  being,  that  one  set  of  persons  and  things  is 
named,  another  is  signified — they  are  set  over  against  one  another ;  but 


*  Teelman,  in  an  elaborate  essay  (Com.  in  Luc.  xvi.),  has  wrought  out  an  expla- 
nation in  part  similar  to  this,  but  also  with  important  differences.  In  this  too.  Dives 
is  the  Jewish  people,  but  by  Lazarus  is  signified  Christ,  rejected  and  despised  by  the 
proud  nation,  and  full  of  sores,  that  is,  bearing  the  sins  of  his  people,  wounded  and 
bruised  for  their  iniquities.  (Isai.  liii.  3-5.)  Vitringa  gives  'the  same  explanation, 
(Erkldr.  der  Parab.,  p.  939,)  but  it  is  not  modern,  for  it  is  mentioned  by  Augustine 
(Qucest.  Evang.,\.  2,  qu.  38):  Lazarum  Dominum  significare  accipiamus  .  .  .  jacen- 
tem  ad  januam  divitis,  quia  se  ad  aures  superbissimas  Judaeorum  Incarnationis  huniili- 
tate  dejecit.  (2  Cor.  viii.  9.)  .  .  .  .  Ulcera  passiones  sunt  Domini  ex  infirmitate  car- 
nis,  quam  pro  nobis  suscipere  dignatus  est  ...  .  Sinus  Abrahae,  secretum  Patris,  quo 
post  passionem  resurgens  assumptus  est  Dominus.  It  is  to  be  found  also  in  Ambrose 
(Exp.  in  Luc,  1.  8,  c.  15)  :  Cui  [Lazaro]  similem  ilium  puto,  qui  caesus  ssepius  a  Ju- 
daeis,  ad  patientiam  credentium  et  vocationem  gentium  ulcera  sui  corporis  lambenda 
quibusdam  velut  canibus  offerebat ;  and  then  he  quotes  Matt.  xv.  27.  See  also  Gill's 
Exp.  of  the  N.  T.,  (in  loc.) — Schleiermacher's  supposition  that  Herod  Antipas,  infa- 
mous for  his  incestuous  marriage,  (see  ver.  18,)  is  pointed  at  in  Dives  is  sufficiently 
curious,  and  one  might  be  tempted  at  first  to  suppose,  original.  Yet  this  interpreta- 
tion, in  its  germ  at  least,  is  to  be  found  in  TertuUian  (Adv.  Marc.,\.  4,  c.  34).  He 
too  sees  in  ver.  18  an  allusion  to  Herod's  marriage,  and  observes  that  the  connexion  is 
closer  than  at  first  sight  appears,  between  that  verse  and  the  parable  which  follows : 
Nam  et  illud  [scil.  argumentum  parabolae]  quantum  ad  Scripturae  superficicm,  subit6 
propositum  est,  quantCim  ad  intentionem  sensfts  et  ipsum  cohaeret  mentioni  Joannis 
malfe  tractati,  et  sugillatui  Herodis  malfe  maritati,  utriusque  exitum  deformans,  Herodis 
tormenta  et  Joannis  refrigeria. 


THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS.  357 

here  the  rich  man  would  mean  a  rich  man,  and  the  poor  man  a  poor — 
the  purple  and  fine  linen  would  mean  purple  and  fine  linen,  and  so  on. 
Thus,  in  fact,  the  question  concerning  which  there  has  been  such  a  va- 
riety of  opinion  from  the  first,  namely,  whether  this  be  a  parable,  or  an 
history,  (real  or  fictitious,  it  matters  not,)  does  in  fact  wholly  depend  on 
the  manner  in  which  it  is  interpreted:  if  the  ordinary  interpretation  be 
the  right  one,  it  is  certainly  not,  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word,  a  par- 
able :  if  that  above  proposed,  or  one  similar,  it  is.*  Nor  will  it,  say 
those  who  support  the  allegorical  explanation,  even  if  that  be  admitted, 
lose  any  of  its  obvious  practical  value:  it  will  still,  as  before,  be  a  warn- 
ing against  trust  in  the  creature,  a  declaration  of  the  fearful  conse- 
quences of  unbelief,  only  that  the  lower  selfishness  of  the  flesh  will  be 
used  as  a  symbol  to  set  forth  the  more  spiritual  selfishness.  It  will  not, 
indeed,  any  longer  be  the  ultimate  aim  of  the  parable  to  teach  the  mise- 
rable doom  which  must  follow  on  the  selfish  abuse  of  worldly  goods,  the 
living  merely  for  this  present  world  ;  but  yet  more  strikingly,  that  mise- 
rable doom  is  assumed  as  so  certain  and  evident,  that  it  may  be  used  as 
the  substratum  on  which  to  superinduce  another  moral,  through  which 
to  aflford  another  warninij.  Whatever  might,  according  to  the  more  usual 
interpretation,  have  been  drawn  from  it,  of  earnest  warning  for  all  the 
children  of  this  present  world,  who  have  faith  in  nothing  beyond  it, — for 
all  who  are  unmindful,  in  their  own  abundance,  of  the  infinite  want  and 
woe  around  them,  of  the  distresses  of  their  fellow-men,  the  same  may  be 
drawn  from  it  still.  Only,  in  addition  to  this  warning  to  the  world,  it 
will  yield  another  deeper  warning  to  the  Church,  that  it  do  not  glorify 
and  exalt  itself  in  the  multitude  of  its  own  blessings  and  privileges,  but 
that  it  have  a  deep  and  feeling  sense  of  the  spiritual  wants  and  miseries 
of  all  who  know  not  God,  and  that  it  seek  earnestly  to  remove  them.  Of 
this  interpretation  I  will  say  something  more  presently ;  it  is  plainly  not 
incompatible  with  the  commonly  received  interpretation,  to  which  it  is 
now  time  to  return. 

"  There  was  a  certain  rich  man,  which  was  clothed  in  purple  and  fine 
linen,  and  fared  sumptuously^  every  day ^^ — habitually  clothed,  for  so 

*  For  a  list  of  the  interpreters,  who  have  held  one  view  and  the  other,  see  Sci- 

CER's  TheS.,  S.  v.  Aa^apos. 

t  Parkhurst  is  not  satisfied  with  this,  "fared  sumptuously,"  which  he  thinks 
an  inadequate  rendering  of  the  original  (eixppatvSfiefOi  Aa/iirpws).  There  is  some- 
thing, he  says,  wanting  in  our  version,  that  should  show  the  exultation  and  merriment 
of  heart  in  which  the  rich  man  lived.  He  proposes,  "  who  lived  in  jovial  splendour  ;" 
and  Mr.  Greswell,  "  enjoying  himself  sumptuously."  Teelman  {Comm.  in  Luc.  xvi., 
p.  320,  seq.)  makes  the  same  objection  to  the  Vulgate,  "  epulabatur  lautfe,"  and  enters 
into  the  matter  at  length.     The  old  Italic  was  nearer  to  their  view,  for  it  seems  to 


358  THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS. 

much  the  word  implies :  it  was  not  on  some  high  day  that  he  thus 
arrayed  himself,  but  this  ^^  purple  and  fine  linen"  was  his  ordinary  ap- 
parel ;  so  too  his  sumptuous  fare,  it  was  his  every  day's  entertainment. 
The  extreme  costliness  of  the  purple  dye  of  antiquity  is  well  known  :* 
the  honour  too  in  which  this  colour  was  held  ;  it  was  accounted  the 
royal  colour  ;  the  purple  garment  was  then,  as  now  in  the  East,  a  royal 
gift.  (Esth.  xviii.  15 ;  Dan.  v.  7  ;  1  Mace.  x.  20  ;  xi.  58 ;  xiv.  43.) 
With  it  too  idols  were  often  clothed.  (Jer.  x.  9.)  There  was  as  much 
then  of  pride  as  of  luxury  in  its  use.  And  the  byssus,  which  we  have 
rightly  translated  "fine  linen"  was  hardly  in  less  price  or  esteem, f  so 
that  he  plainly  sought  out  for  himself  all  that  was  costliest  and  rarest. 
Yet  while  this  was  so,  it  has  often  been  observed,  and  cannot  be  ob- 
served too  often,  that  he  is  not  accused  of  any  breach  of  the  law, — not, 
like  those  rich  men  in  St.  James  (v.  1-6),  of  any  flagrant  crimes. 
"  Jesus  said  not,  a  calumniator, — he  said  not,  an  oppressor  of  the  poor, 
— he  said  not,  a  robber  of  other  men's  goods,  nor  a  receiver  of  such,  nor 
a  false  accuser, — he  said  not,  a  spoiler  of  orphans,  a  persecutor  of 
widows  :  nothing  of  these.     But  what  did  he  say  ? — '  There  was  a  cer- 

have  had  (Ir^neus,  Con.  Hcbt.,  1. 3,c.  41)  jucundabatur  nitidfe.  So  Luther,  who  translates, 
"  Und  lebte  herrlich  und  in  Freuden."  But  the  immediate  mention  which  follows,  of 
the  crumbs  falling  from  the  table,  makes  it  most  probable  that  some  sumptuous  feast- 
ings,  some  Eximid,  veste  et  victu  convivia,  are  here  indicated  ;  and  both  \afnrp6;  and 
ei(ppaivoiiat,  if  oftener  used  in  the  other  sense,  are  frequently  enough  in  this.  Hesychius 
interprets  cv(0')(^ridcvTa  as  =zti<ppav(livTa,  and  we  read  of  Xajinpa  iScc^ara  (Sirac.  xxix.  26). 

*  That  is,  the  true  sea-purple.  There  were  many  cheaper  substitutes  for  it :  thus 
one,  in  Lucian's  Namgium,  c.  22,  who  is  desiring  to  lay  out  for  himself  a  life  like  that 
of  Dives,  and  in  imagination  heaping  on  himself  every  thing  of  the  costliest,  says, 
laQiii  iiTi  TovToti  uXovpy'ts,  [that  is,  aXos  cpyoi',  the  true  work  of  the  sea],  «-oi  6  /Sios  olos 
d/?p(5raro{.  Its  rarity  arose  from  the  exceeding  small  quantity,  but  a  few  drops,  of  the 
hquid  which  served  for  the  dyeing,  found  in  each  fish.  (Pun.,  H.  N.,  ).  9,  c.  60.)  All 
modern  inquirers  have  failed  to  discover  what  shell-fish  it  exactly  was  which  yielded 
the  precious  dye.     (Winer's  Real  WOrterhuch,  s.  v.  Purpur.) 

t  Flint  {H.  N.,  1.  19,  c.  4)  tells  of  a  kind  of  byssus  which  was  exchanged  for  its 
weight  in  gold  :  it  served,  he  says,  mulierum  maximfe  deliciis.  It  is  not  probable,  as 
has  been  sometimes  asserted,  that  we  have  an  iv  iCu.  ivoXv  in  "purple  and  fine  linen," 
so  that  indeed  it  signifies  fine  linen  dyed  of  a  purple  hue.  Though  the  byssus  did 
sometimes  receive  this  colour,  yet  its  glory  was  rather  in  its  dazzling  whiteness  ;  thu3 
Rev.  xix.  8,  14,  "  fine  linen,  white  and  clean  ;"  and  Pliny,  //.  N.,  1. 19,  c.  2,  speaking 
of  the  fine  linen  of  Upper  Egypt,  Nee  ulla  sunt  eis  candore  mollitia.que  praeferenda  ; 
vestes  inde  gratissimce.  The  byssus  here  was  the  inner  vest,  the  purple  the  outer 
robe.  The  two  occur  together,  Rev.  xviii.  12,  as  part  of  the  merchandise  of  Babylon. 
The  blue  and  white  formed  an  highly  prized  combination  of  colours,  Esth.  viii.  15. 
(See  the  Diet,  of  Gr.  and  Rom.  Antt.,  s.  v.  Byssus,  p.  169  ;  Winer's  Real  WOrter- 
huch, s.  V.  Baumwolle  ;  and  Bahr's  Symholih  d.  Mas.  Cult.,  v.  1,  pp.  310,  338  ;  v.  2, 
p.  72.) 


THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS.  359 

tain  rich  man,'  And  what  was  his  crime  ? — A  lazar  lying  at  his  gate7  f 
and  lying  unrelieved."*  Nor  is  he  even  accused  of  being,  as  he  is  some- 
times  called,  for  instance  in  the  heading  of  the  chapter  in  our  Bibles, — 
"a  glutton."  To  call  him  such,  "  a  Sir  Epicure  Mammom,"  serves 
only  to  turn  the  edge  of  the  parable.  For,  on  the  contrary,  there  is 
nothing  to  make  us  think  him  other  than  a  reputable  man, — one  of 
whom  none  could  say  worse  than  that  he  loved  to  dwell  at  ease,  that  he 
desired  to  remove  far  off  from  himself  all  things  painful  to  the  flesh,  to 
surround  himself  with  all  things  pleasurable.  His  name  Christ  has  not 
told  us,  but  the  poor  man's  only  :f  "  Seems  he  not  to  you,"  asks  Augus- 
tine,:}: "  to  have  been  reading  from  that  book  where  he  found  the  name 
of  the  poor  man  written,  but  found  not  the  name  of  the  rich  ;  for  that  book 
is  the  book  of  life  ?"  "Jesus,"  says  Cajetan,  "  of  a  purpose  named  the 
beggar,  but  the  rich  man  he  designated  merely  as  '  a  certain  man,'  so  to 
testify  that  the  spiritual  order  of  things  is  contrary  to  the  worldly..  In 
the  world,  the  names  of  the  rich  are  known,  and  when  they  are  talked 
of,  they  are  designated  by  their  names  ;  but  the  names  of  the  poor  are 
either  not  known,  or  if  known  are  counted  unworthy  to  be  particularly 
noted.  "§ 

At  the  gate  of  the  rich  man,  whose  name  though  well  known  on 
earth,  was  thus  unrecognized  in  heaven,  the  beggar  Lazarus  was  flung 
— brought  it  may  be  thither,  by  the  last  who  took  any  care  or  charge  of 
him  upon  earth ;  and  who  now  released  themselves  gladly  of  their 
charge,  counting  they  had  done  enough  when  they  had  cast  him  under 
the  eye,  and  so  upon  the  pity,  of  one  so  easily  able  to  help  them.  The 
circumstance  that  Lazarus  was  laid  at  the  gate,  in  the  vestibule  it 
might  be,  or  open  porch,  of  the  rich  man's  palace,  which  was  probably 
henceforth  his  only  home,  this  circumstance  contains  an  ample  reply 

*  Augustine,  {Serm.  178,  c.  3.)  Massillon  has  one  of  his  most  deeply  impressive 
Lent  sermons  upon  this  parable,  in  which  he  labours  especially  to  bring  out  this  point. 

t  Aa^apos,  abridged  from  'EXed^apus,  and  once  called  by  Tertullian  Eleazar.  There 
are  two  derivations  given  of  the  name,  the  one  most  generally  received  would  make  it, 
Who  has  God  only  for  his  help  ;  but  Olshausen  adheres  to  the  other,  which  would 
make  Aa^apoj  =  d/?o^0ijroj.  (See  Suicer's  Thes.,  s.  v.  Adi^apos.)  It  is  a  striking  evi- 
dence of  the  deep  impression  which  this  parable  has  made  on  the  mind  of  Christen- 
dom, that  the  term,  lazar,  should  have  passed  into  so  many  languages  as  it  has,  losing 
altogether  its  signification  as  a  proper  name.  Euthymius  mentions  that  some  called 
the  rich  man,  Nimeusis ;  and  they  used  to  show,  perhaps  still  pretend  to  show,  the 
ruins  of  his  house  at  Jerusalem  :  thus  an  old  traveller :  Inde  ad  quindecim  passus  pro- 
cedentibus  obviam  fiunt  aedes  (ut  volant)  divilis  illius  epulonis,  ex  quadratis  et  dolatis 
constructae  lapidibus,  magnifico  et  eleganti  opere,  altis  muris  licet  ruinosis  conspicuae. 

t  Serm.  41. 

§  So  Bengel :  Lazarus  nomine  suo  notus  in  caelo ;  dives  non  censetur  nomine  ullo. 


360  THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS. 

to  one,*  who  in  his  eagerness  to  fasten  some  charge  on  Scripture,  as- 
serts that  there  is  no  reason  sufficient  given  why  the  rich  man  should 
have  been  punished  as  he  was, — that  "  his  only  crime  seems  to  have 
been  his  wealth."  The  beggar  was  cast  at  his  very  porch,  so  that  ig- 
norance of  his  distresses  and  miseries  might  in  no  wise  be  pleaded.  And 
even  if  the  rich  man  did  not  know,  that  ignorance  itself  would  have  been 
his  crime,  for  it  was  his  task  to  have  made  himself  acquainted  with  the 
misery  that  was  round  him ;  since  for  what  else  was  the  leisure  of 
wealth  given  him  ? 

As  the  rich  man's  splendid  manner  of  living  was  painted  in  a  few 
strokes,  so  in  a  few  as  expressive  is  set  forth  to  us  the  utter  misery  and 
destitution  of  Lazarus.  Like  Job,  he  was  "  full  of  sores" — hungry,  and 
no  man  gave  to  him, — for  since  it  is  evidently  our  Lord's  purpose  to  de- 
scribe the  extreme  of  earthly  destitution,  it  seems  most  probably  meant 
that  Jie  desired,  hut  in  vain,  "  to  be  fed  with  the  crumbs  which  fell  from 
the  rich  man's  table;"  (Judg.  i.  7) — even  these  were  not  thrown  to  him, 
at  least  not  in  such  a  measure  that  he  could  be  satisfied  with  them.-f* 
Shut  out  from  human  fellowship  and  human  pity,  he  found  sympathy 
only  from  the  dumb  animals ;  "  the  dogs  came  and  licked  his  sores," — 
probably  the  animals  without  a  master  that  wander  through  the  streets 
of  an  Eastern  city.  (Ps.  lix.  15,  16.)  Chrysostom  indeed,  and  others 
after  him,  have  seen  in  this  circumstance  an  evidence  of  the  extreme 
weakness  and  helplessness  to  which  disease  and  want  had  reduced  him  ; 
he  lay  like  one  dead,  and  without  strength  even  to  fray  away  the  dogs, 
which  approached  to  lick  his  sores,  and  thus  to  aggravate  his  misery  by 
exasperating  their  pain.  Yet  this  is  hardly  what  is  meant :  for  medicinal 
virtue  was  in  ancient  times  popularly  attributed  to  the  tongue  of  the 
dog  ;:]:  being  moist  and  smooth,  it  would  certainly  not  exasperate,  but 
rather  assuage  the  pain  of  a  wound.  The  circumstance  seems  rather 
mentioned  to  enhance  the  cruelty  and  neglect  of  the  rich  man,  and  to 
set  them  in  the  strongest  light; — man  neglected  his  fellow- man,  beheld 

*  Strauss,  {Leben  Jesu,  v.  1,  p.  671,)  but  he  has  had  a  forerunner  here,  for  among 
the  essays  written  on  this  parable,  there  is  one  (reprinted  in  Ease's  Thes.  Theol.,)  by 
A.  L.  Konigsmann,  which  is  entitled,  Be  Divite  Epulone  d,  Christo  immisericordice 
non  accusato.  1708.  But  Grotius  rightly  remarks  that  Lazarus  was  cast,  in  ipso 
divitis  aspectu  ut  ignorantiam  caussari  nullo  modo  posset ;  and  see  Neander's  Leben 
Jesu,  p.  205,  note.  He  has  a  poor  notion  of  the  Christian  law  of  love,  who  under- 
takes the  defence  of  Dives. 

t  The  words  however  which  are  found  in  the  Vulgate,  Et  nemo  illi  dabat,  do  not 
belong  here,  and  are  evidently  transferred  from  ch.  xv.  16. 

t  H.  de  Sto  Victore  :  Lingua  canis  dum  lingit  vulnus,  curat.  (See  also  Winer, 
Seal  WOrterbuch,  s.  v.  Speichel.)  When  Hilary  too  (Tract,  in  Fs.  cxxii.)  sets  him 
in  aggestu  fimi,  this  also  is  a  needless  exaggeration  of  his  own. 


THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS.  261 

his  sufferings  with  a  careless  eye  and  an  unmoved  heart,  yet  was  it  a 
misery  which  even  the  beasts  had  pity  on,  so  that  what  little  they  could 
they  did  to  alleviate  his  sufferings.  We  have  in  fact  in  the  two  descrip- 
tions stroke  for  stroke.  Dives  is  covered  with  purple  and  fine  linen  ; 
Lazarus  is  covered  only  with  sores.  The  one  fares  sumptuously,  the 
other  desires  to  be  fed  with  crumbs.  The  one,  although  this  is  left  to 
our  imagination  to  fill  up,  has  numerous  attendants  to  wait  on  his  least 
caprice,  the  other  only  dogs  to  tend  his  sores. 

There  is  nothing  expressly  said  concerning  the  moral  condition  of 
Lazarus — his  faith,  his  patience,  his  resignation  to  the  will  of  God.  Yet 
these  from  the  sequel  must  all  be  assumed,  since  his  poverty  of  itself 
would  never  have  brought  him  to  Abraham's  bosom.  We  may  certain- 
ly assume  that  he  suffered  after  a  godly  sort,  that  he  did  not  "  call  the 
proud  happy,"  nor  say  that  he  had  cleansed  his  heart  in  vain,  but  pa- 
tiently abided,  putting  his  trust  in  the  Lord.  But  for  this,  his  sufferings 
themselves,  however  great,  would  have  profited  him  nothing,  would  have 
brought  him  not  a  whit  nearer  the  kingdom  of  God.  In  all  homiletic  use 
of  the  parable,  this  should  never  be  left  out  of  sight.  Thus  Augustine 
has  more  than  one  admirable  discourse,  in  which,  having  brought  home 
to  the  rich  and  great,  to  the  prosperous  children  of  the  world,  the  awful 
warning  which  is  here  for  them,  he  turns  round  to  the  poor,  and  exhorts 
them  that  they  be  not  deceived,  as  though  mere  outward  poverty  were 
of  itself  sufficient  to  bring  them  into  a  conformity  with  Lazarus,  and  into- 
the  possession  of  the  good  things  which  he  inherited.  He  tells  them  that 
poverty  of  spirit  must  go  along  with  that  external  poverty,  which  last  is 
to  be  looked  at,  not  as  itself  constituting  humility,  but  only  as  a  great* 
help  to  it — even  as  wealth  is  to  be  regarded  not  as  of  necessity  excluding; 
humility,  but  only  as  a  great  hindrance  to  it,  a  great  temptation,  lest< 
they  that  have  it  be  high-minded,  and  come  to  trust  in  those  uncertain.' 
riches,  rather  than  in  the  living  God  :  and  he  often  bids  them  note,,  how 
the  very  Abraham  into  whose  bosom  Lazarus  was  carried,  was  one  who^ 
had  been  on  earth  rich  in  flocks,  and  in  herds,  and  in  all  possessions.* 


*  Thus,  Servi.  14,  c.  2:  Ait  mihi  quisque  mendicus  debilitate  fessus,  pannis  ob- 
eitus,  fame  languidus,  Mihi  debetur  regnum  caelorum,  ego  enim  similis  sum  illi  Laza- 
ro :  Nostrum  genus  est  cui  debetur  regnum  cajlorum,  non  illi  generi  qui  induuntur 
purpura,  et  bysso,  et  epulantur  quotidie  splendid^.  Augustine  replies:  Ciim  ilium 
sanctum  ulcerosum  te  esse  dicis,  timeo  ne  superbiendo  non  sis  quod  dicis.  Esto- 
verus  pauper,  esto  pins,  esto  humilis.  Nam  si  de  ipsa.  pannosEi  et  ulcerosa,  pauper- 
tate  gloriaris,  quia  talis  fuit  ille  qui  ante  domum  divitis  inops  jacebat,  attendis  quia^ 
pauper  fuit  et  aliud  non  attendis. — {Enarr.  in  Ps.  Ixxxv.  1)  :  Nunquid  vere  ille  pau- 
per merito  illius  inopiae  ablatus  est  ab  angelis,  dives  autem  ille  peccato  divitiarum. 
suarum  ad  tormenta  missus  est?     In  illo  paupere  humilitas  intelligitur  honorificata,  in, 

24 


362  THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS. 

But  this  worldly  glory  and  this  worldly  misery  are  alike  to  have  an 
end  :  they  are  the  passing  shows  of  things,  not  the  abiding  realities.  "  It 
came  to  pass  that  the  beggar  died/' — he  died,  and  how  mighty  the 
change !  he  whom  but  a  moment  before  no  man  served,  whom  none  but 
the  dogs  cared  for,  is  tended  of  angels,  is  by  them  carried  into  the  bless- 
edness prepared  for  him,*  **  into  Abraham's  bosom."  This  last  phrase 
has  been  sometimes  explained  as  though  he  was  brought  into  the  chiefest 
place  of  honour  and  felicity,  such  as  the  sons  of  Zebedee  asked  for  them- 
selves, (Matt.  XX.  23,)  that  he  was  admitted  not  merely  to  sit  down  with 
Abraham  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  at  the  heavenly  festival,  whereunto 
all  the  faithful  should  be  admitted,  but  to  lean  on  his  bosom,  an  honour 
of  which  one  only  could  partake,  as  John  the  beloved  disciple  leaned 
upon  Jesus'  bosom  at  the  paschal  supper.  But  this  explanation  starts 
altogether  upon  a  wrong  assumption,  since  the  image  underlying  ''Abra- 
ham's bosom"  is  not  that  of  a  feast  at  all.  Hades  is  not  the  place  of  the 
great  festival  of  the  kingdom,  which  is  reserved  for  the  actual  setting  up 
of  that  kingdom,  and  to  which  there  is  allusion  Matt.  viii.  11 ;  Luke  xiii. 
29,  30.  This  is  not  a  parallel  passage  with  those,  but  rather  is  to  find 
its  explanation  from  John  i.  18,  where  the  only-begotten  Son  is  declared 
to  be  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father:  it  is  a  figurative  phrase  to  express  the 
deep  quietness  of  an  innermost  communion. f     Besides,  the  Jews,  from 


illo  divite  superbia  damnata.  Breviter  probo,  quia  non  SivitijE,  sed  supeibla  in  illo 
divite  cruciabatur.  Certe  iile  pauper  in  sinum  Abrahae  sublatus  est.  De  ipso  Abra- 
ham dicit  Sciiptura,  quia  habebat  hie  plurimum  auri  et  argenti,  et  dives  fuit  in  terra. 
Si  qui  dives  est  ad  tormenta  rapitur,  quomodo  Abraham  praecesserat  pauperem,  ut 
ablatum  in  sinum  siium  susciperet  ?  Sed  erat  Abraham  in  divitiis  pauper  humilis, 
tremens  omnia  praecepta  et  obaudiens.  Cf.  Enarr.  in  Ps.  cxxxi.  15,  and  in  Fs.  11.  9: 
Quid  tibi  prodest,  si  eges  facultate,  et  ardes  eupiditate  ?  This  last  passage  is  worth 
referring  to,  for  the  profound  insight  which  it  gives  into  the  full  meaning  of  Matt.  xix. 
23-26. 

*  Luther  :  En  qui  dum  vivebat,  ne  unum  quidcm  hominem  habuit  amicum,  re- 
pente  non  unius  angeli,  sed  plurium  ministeiio  honoratur.  The  belief  was  current 
among  the  Jews  that  the  souls  of  the  rigiiteous  were  carried  by  angels  into  paradise  ; 
there  are  frequent  allusions  to  this  in  the  apocryphal  gospels.  (See  Thii.o's  Cod. 
Apocryphu&,  v.  1,  pp.  25,  45,  777.)  In  the  heathen  mythology  the  task  was  as- 
signed  to  Mercury,  n-o^Toro?,  xpv^oiTOfiiTCs,  i/'ii;^ay(oy(5s.  So  Horace  :  Tu  pias  IsEtis  ani- 
mas  reponis  Sedibus. 

t  Lud.  Capellus  (Spicilegium,  p.  56) :  Porro  sinus  Abrahae  non  tam  videtur  hie 
dictus  d  more  accumbentium  mensae  (uti  vulg6  accipitur  haec  phrasis)  quam  potius  ii 
puerulis  qui  parentibus  sunt  carissimi,  quos  parentes  in  sinu  sive  gremio  fovent,  in  quo 
etiam  suaviter  interdum  quiescunt.  And  Gerhard  (Loc.  Thcoll.,  loc.  27,  c.  8,  §  3)  : 
Vocatur  sinus  melaphora,  ducta.  k  parentibus,  qui  puerulos  suos  diurnS  discursitatione 
fessos;  vel  ex  peregrinatione  domum  reversos,  aut  ex  adverso  aliquo  casu  ejulantes,  so- 
latii  causa  in  sinum  suum  recipiunt,  ut  ibi  suaviter  quiescant.     Theophylact  assumes 


THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS.  363 

whom  the  phrase  is  borrowed,  spoke  of  all  true  believers  as  going  to 
Abraham,  as  being  received  into  his  bosom.  To  be  in  Abraham's  bosom 
was  equivalent  with  them  to  the  being  "  in  the  garden  of  Eden,"  or  "  un- 
der the  throne  of  glory,"  the  being  gathered  into  the  general  receptacle  of 
happy  but  waiting  souls.*  (See  Wisd.  iii.  1-3.)  The  expression  alrea- 
dy existing  among  them  received  here  the  sanction  and  seal  of  Christ, 
and  has  come  thus  to  be  accepted  by  the  Church, f  which  has  understood 
by  it  in  like  manner  the  state  of  painless  expectation,  of  blissful  repose, 
which  should  intervene  between  the  death  of  the  faithful  in  Christ  Jesus, 
and  their  perfect  consummation  and  bliss  at  his  coming  in  his  glorious 
kingdom.  It  is  the  "  Paradise  "  of  Luke  xxiii.  43,  the  place  of  the  souls 
under  the  altar;  (Rev.  vi.  9;)  it  is,  as  some  distinguish  it,  blessedness, 
but  not  glory.:]:  Hither,  to  this  haven  of  rest  and  consolation,  Lazarus, 
after  all  his  troubles,  was  safely  borne. § 

But  "  the  rich  man  also  died  and  was  buried" — it  would  appear  sub- 
sequently to  Lazarus,  so  that,  as  has  been  noted,  the  mercy  of  God  was 
manifest  in  the  order  of  their  deaths  :  Lazarus  was  more  early  exempted 
from  the  miseries  o^  his  earthly  lot ;  Dives  was  allowed  a  longer  time 
and  space  for  repentance.  But  at  last  his  day  of  grace  came  to  an  end  ; 
it  is  possible  that  the  putting  of  Lazarus  under  his  eye  had  been  his  final 
trial  ;  his  neglect  of  him  the  last  drop  that  made  the  cup  of  God's  long- 
suffering  to  run  over.  Entertaining  him,  he  might  have  unawares  en- 
tertained angels.  He  had  led  slip,  however,  this  latest  opportunity,  and 
on  the  death  of  Lazarus  follows  hard,  as  would  seem,  his  own.  He 
'^  also  died  and  was  hurled."     There  is  a  sublime  irony,  a  stain  upon 

the  image  to  be  rather  that  of  an  harbour,  where  the  faithful  cast  anchor  and  are  in 
quiet  after  the  storms  and  tribulations  of  life.  This  escapes  us  in  the  English,  but 
might  be  suggested  equally  by  the  Latin  sinus  as  the  Greek  KoXiroi. 

*  See  Lightfoot's  Hor.  Heb.,  in  Ice. 

t  For  ample  quotations  from  the  Greek  Fathers,  see  Suicer's  Thes.,  s.  v.  K6\nos. 
Augustine  (£p.  187)  is  worth  referring  to,  and  Tertullian  {De  Anima,c.  58).  Aquinas 
{Sum.  Theol.,  pars  3»,  qu.  52,  art.  2)  gives  the  view  of  the  middle  ages  ;  Cajetan,  of 
the  modern  Romish  Church,  which,  for  good  reasons  of  its  own,  has  always  depressed 
as  much  as  possible  the  felicity  of  that  middle  state  :  In  limbo  patrum  erat  consolatio 
turn  securitatis  aeternae  beatitudinis,  tum  sanctae  societatis,  turn  exemptionis  ab  omni 
poena,  sensiis.  Limborch  {Theol.  Christ.,  1.  6,  c.  10,  §  8)  has  a  striking  passage,  in 
which,  starting  from  the  Scriptural  phrase  of  death  as  a  slelj],  he  compares  the  inter- 
mediate state  of  the  good  to  a  sweet  and  joyful  dream,  while  the  wicked  are  as  men 
afflicted  with  horrible  and  frightful  dreams,  each  being  to  waken  on  the  reality  of  the 
things  of  which  he  has  been  dreaming  ;  in  this  agreeing  with  Tertullian,  who  calls  that 
state  a  praelibatio  sententiae. 

X  Beatitude,  but  not  gloria. 

§  Augustine  {Serm.  41) :  Sarcina  Christi,  pennae  sunt.    His  pennis  ille  pauper  in 
sinum  Abrahae  volavit. 


364  THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS. 

all  earthly  glory,  in  this  mention  of  his  burial,  connected  as  it  is  with 
what  is  immediately  to  follow.  No  doubt  we  are  meant  to  infer  that  he 
had  a  splendid  funeral,  all  things  according  to  the  most  approved  pomp 
of  the  world  ;*  this  splendid  carrying  to  the  grave  is  for  him  what  the 
carrying  into  Abraham's  bosom  was  for  Lazarus, — it  is  his  equivalent, 
which,  however,  profits  him  but  little  where  now  he  is.f 

For  his  death  is  for  him  an  awakening  from  his  flattering  dream  of 
ease  and  pleasure  and  delight  upon  the  stern  and  terrible  realities  of 
the  life  to  come.  He  has  sought  to  save  his  life,  and  has  lost  it.  The 
play  in  which  he  acted  the  rich  man  is  ended,  and  as  he  went  off  the 
stage,  he  was  stripped  bare  of  all  the  trappings  with  which  he  had  been 
furnished,  that  he  might  sustain  his  part :  all  that  remains  is  the  fact  that 
he  has  played  it  badly,  and  so  will  have  no  praise,  but  rather  extremest 
blame,  from  him  who  allotted  him  the  character  to  sustain.:}: 

*  Seculariter  fucata  :  Augustine. 

+  See  for  a  noble  passage  on  the  rich  man's  buria!  Augustine  {Enarr.  in  Fs.  xlviii. 
18)  :  Spiritus  torquetur  apnd  inferos,  quid  illi  prodest  quia  corpus  jacet  in  cinnamis  el 
aromatibus  involatum  pretiosis  linteis  1  Tanquam  si  dominus  domvis  mittatur  in  exili- 
«m,  et  tu  ernes  parietes  ipsius.  Ille  in  exilio  eget,  et  fame  deficit,  vix  sibi  unam  cellam 
invenit  nbi  somnnm  capiat,  et  In  dicis,  Felix  est,  nam  ornata  est  domns  iilius.  The 
whole  exposition  of  the  Psalm  is  full  of  interesting  niaUer  in  regard  of  this  parable.  Cf. 
Enarr.  in  Ps  xxxiii.  22. — According  to  Jewish  notions,  it  was  this  very  burial  which 
handed  him  over  to  his  torments,  for  in  the  book  Sobar  it  is  said  :  Anima  quae  non  esl 
justa  in  hoc  mundo  permanet,  donee  corpus  sepultum  est,  quo  facto  ipsa  deducitur  in 
gehennam. 

X  Both  these  images,  that  of  awaking  from  a  dream  of  delight,  and  bringing  to  an 
end  some  proud  pan  in  a  play,  are  used  by  Chrysostom  lo  set  forth  the  altered  condi- 
tion of  the  rich  man  after  his  death.  {Ad  T/teod.  Laps.,  1.  1,  c.  8)  :  "  For  as  they  who 
toil  in  the  mines,  or  undergo  some  other  penalty  more  terrible  even  than  this,  when  per- 
chance they  fall  lo  sleep  under  their  many  labours  and  their  most  bitter  existence,  and 
in  dreams  behold  themselves  lapped  in  delights  and  in  ail  rich  abundance,  yet  after  they 
are  awakened  owe  no  thanks  to  their  dreams  ;  so  also  that  rich  man,  as  in  a  dream  be- 
ing wealthy  for  this  present  life,  after  his  migration  hence  was  punished  with  that  bitter 
punishment."  And  again  {De  Laz.,  Cone.  11)  :  "  For  as  on  the  stage  some  enter,  as- 
suming the  masks  of  kings  and  captains,  physicians  and  orators,  philosophers  and  sol- 
diers, being  in  truth  nothing  of  the  kind,  so  also  in  the  present  life,  wealth  and  poverty 
are  only  masks.  As  then,  when  thou  sittest  in  the  theatre,  and  beholdest  one  playing 
below,  who  sustains  the  part  of  a  king,  thou  dost  not  count  him  happy,  nor  esteemeat 
him  a  king,  nor  desirest  to  be  such  as  he  ;  but  knowing  him  to  be  one  of  the  common 
people,  a  ropemaker  or  a  blacksmith,  or  some  such  a  one  as  this,  thou  dost  not  esteem 
him  happy  for  his  mask  and  his  robe's  sake,  nor  judgest  of  his  condition  from  these,  but 
boldest  l.im  cheap  for  the  meanness  of  his  true  condition  :  so  also,  here  sitting  in  the 
world  as  in  a  theatre,  and  beholding  men  playing  as  on  a  stage,  when  thou  seest  many 
rich,  count  them  not  to  be  truly  rich,  but  to  be  wearing  the  masks  of  rich.  For  as  he, 
who  on  the  stage  plays  the  king  or  captain,  is  often  a  slave,  or  one  who  sells  figs  or 
grapes  in  the  market, so  also  this  rich  man  is  often  in  reality  poorest  ot  all.     l^o,  if  thou 


THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS.  355 

From  this  verse  the  scene  of  the  parable  passes  beyond  the  range  of 
our  experience  into  the  unknown  world  of  spirits,  but  not  beyond  the 
range  of  his  eye  to  whom  both  worlds,  that  and  this,  are  alike  open  and 
manifest.  He  appears  as  much  at  home  there  as  here ;  he  moves  in 
that  world  as  with  a  perfect  familiarity,  speaking  without  astonishment, 
as  of  things  which  he  knows.  He  still  indeed  continues  to  use  the  lan- 
guage of  men,  as  the  only  language  by  which  he  could  make  himself 
intelligible  to  men.  Yet  is  it  not  easy  now  to  separate  between  what  is 
merely  figure,  vehicle  for  truth,  and  what  is  to  be  held  fast  as  itself 
essential  truth.*  We  may  safely  say  that  the  form  in  which  the  ex- 
pression of  pain,  and  of  desire  after  alleviation,  embodies  itself,  is  figu- 
rative, even  as  the  dialogue  between  Abraham  and  Dives  belongs  in  the 
same  way  to  the  parabolical  clothing  of  the  truth.  It  is  indeed  the  hope 
and  longing  after  deliverance  which  alternately  rises,  and  is  again 
crushed  by  the  voice  of  the  condemning  law  speaking  in  and  through 
the  conscience  : — as  by  the  seeing  of  Lazarus  in  Abraham's  bosom, 
is  conveyed  to  us  the  truth,  that  the    misery  of  the  wicked  will  be 

strip  him  of  his  mask,  and  unfoW  his  conscience,  and  scrutinize  his  inward  parts,  thou 
wik  there  find  a  great  penury  of  virtue,  tliou  wilt  find  him  to  be  indeed  the  most  abject 
of  men.  And  as  in  the  theatre,  when  evening  is  come  and  the  spectators  are  departed, 
and  the  players  are  gone  forth  from  thence,  having  laid  aside  their  masks  and  their 
(dresses,  then  they  who  before  showed  as  kings  and  captains  to  all,  appear  now  as  they 
truly  are  ;  so  now,  when  death  approaches  and  the  audience  is  dismissed,  all  laying 
aside  the  masks  of  wealth  and  of  poverty  depart  from  hence,  and  being  judged  only  by 
their  works,  appear  some  indeed  truly  rich,  but  some  poor  ;  and  some  glorious,  but 
others  without  honour."  Cf.  Augustine,  Serm.  345.  Arndt  (De  Vera  Christ.,  1.  1,  c. 
20)  has  a  fine  comparison  to  set  forth  the  same  truth.  Of  such  as  the  rich  man  in  our 
parable,  he  says  :  Quos  homines  fortasse  non  male  camelis  et  rauliscomparaveris  ;  nam 
ut  illi  per  rupes  montiumque  edita  vesles  sericas,  genimas,  aromata,  et  generosa  vina 
dorso  vehentes,  agmen  quasi  quoddam  famulorum  cu.=todiae  et  securitatis  causa  secum 
trahunt  ;  simulac  vero  circa  vesperam  in  stabulum  venerint,  preliosorumornamentorum 
vestiumque  pictarum  apparatus  illis  detrahitur,  jamque  lassi  et  ornni  comitatu  nudati 
nil  nisi  vibices  et  livida  plagarum  vestigia  ostentant :  Ita  qui  in  hoc  mundo  auro  et  se- 
rico  nituerunt.obitiis  extrema  vespera  irruente,  nihil  habent  praeter  vibices  et  cicatrices 
peccatorura  per  abusum  divitiarum  sibi  impressas.  Shakspeare  has  the  same  thought : 
"  If  thou  art  rich,  thou  art  poor, 

For  like  an  ass  whose  back  with  ingots  bows, 

Thou  bear'st  thy  heavy  riches  but  a  journey, 

And  death  unloads  thee." 
*  There  were  some  in  Augustine's  time  that  took  all  this  to  the  letter,  but  he  has 
more  doubts  and  misgivings  {De  Gen.  ad  Lit.,\.  8,  c.  6) :  Sed  quomodo  intelligenda  sit 
ilia  flamma  inferni,  ille  sinus  Abrahae,  ilia  lingua  divitis,  ille  digitus  pauperis,  ilia  sitis 
tormenti,  illastilla  refrigerii,vix  fortasse  a,  mansuetfe,  quaerentibus,  ii  contentiose  autem 
certantibus  nunquam,  invenitur.  Tertullian  (Z)e  Animd,c.  7)  has  of  course  taken  it  ail 
iiteraliy. 


356  THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS. 

aororavated  by  the  comparison  which  they  will  continually  be   making 
of  their  lost  estate  with  the  blessedness  of  the  faithful. 

But  to  return  ;  he  that  had  that  gorgeous  funeral  is  now  "in  hell,'' 
or  "  in  Hades"  rather  ;  for  as  ^'■Ahrahani's  losovi"  is  not  heaven,  though 
it  will  issue  in  heaven,  so  neither  is  Hades  '■'hell,'^  though  to  issue  in  it, 
when  death  and  Hades  shall  be  cast  into  the  lake  of  fire,  which  is  the 
proper  hell.  (Rev.  xx.  14.)  It  is  the  place  of  painful  restraint,*  where 
the  souls  of  the  wicked  are  reserved  to  the  judgment  of  the  great  day ; 
it  is  "  the  deep"  whither  the  devils  prayed  that  they  might  not  be  sent 
to  be  tormented  before  their  time,  (Luke  viii.  31,) — for  as  that  other 
blessed  place  has  a  foretaste  of  heaven,  so  has  this  place  a  foretaste  of 
hell ;  Dives  being  there  is  "  in  tormeyits,"  stripped  of  all  wherein  his 
soul  delighted  and  found  its  satisfaction  ;  his  purple  robe  has  become  a 
garment  of  fire  ;f  as  he  himself  describes  it,  he  is  "  tormented  in  this 
jlamey 

For  a  while  we  may  believe  that  he  found  it  impossible  to  realize  his 
present  position,  to  connect  his  present  self  with  his  past ;  all  for  a  while 
may  have  seemed  to  him  only  as  some  fearful  dream.  But  when  at 
length  he  had  convinced  himself  that  it  was  not  indeed  this  dream,  but 
an  awaking,  and  would  take  the  measure  of  his  actual  condition,  then, 
and  that  he  might  so  do,  "  he  lifted  up  his  eyes,  and  seeth  Abraham  afar 
off,  and  Lazarus  in  his  hosom."  (Isai.  Ixv.  13,  14.)  ^' And  he  cried 
and  said,  Father  Abraham,"  still  clinging  to  the  hope  that  his  descent 
from  Abraham,  his  fleshly  privileges,  will  profit  him  something :  he 
would  plead  that  he  has  Abraham  to  his  father,  though  it  was  indeed 
this  which  made  his  sin  so  great,  his  fall  so  deep.  This,  which  was 
once  his  glory,  is  now  the  very  stress  of  his  guilt.  That  he,  a  son  of 
Abraham,  the  man  of  that  liberal  hand  and  princely  heart,  the  man  in 
whom,  as  the  head  of  their  great  family,  every  Jew  was  reminded  of  his 
kinship  with  every  other,  of  the  one  blood  in  their  veins,  of  the  one  hope 
in  God  which  ennobled  then*  all  from  the  least  to  the  greatest, — should 
have  so  sinned  against  the  mighty  privileges  of  his  condition,  should 
have  so  denied  through  his  life,  all  which  the  name  "son  of  Abraham" 
was  meant  to  teach  him,  it  was  this  which  had  brought  him  to  that  place 
of  torment.  Nor  does  Abraham  deny  the  relationship,  for  he  addresses 
him  not  as  a  stranger  but  a  son,  yet  thus,  in  the  very  allowance  of  the 
relationship,  coupled  with  the  refusal  of  the  request,  rings  the  knell  of 
his  latest  hope.     Poor  and  infinitely  slight  was  the  best  alleviation  which 


*  ^vXaKh  (1  Pet.  iii.  18)  =al3vacros.  (Luke  viii.  31.) 

+  Augustine  (Serm.  36,  c.  6) :  Successit  ignis  purpursD  et  bysso  :  eft.  tunici  arJebat, 
qui  se  exspoliare  non  poterat. 


THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS.  3Q7 

he  had  looked  for, — a  drop  of  water  on  his  fiery  tongue  !  So  shrunken 
are  his  desires,  so  low  is  the  highest  hope  which  even  he  himself  ven- 
tures to  entertain.*  Nothing  could  have  marked  so  strongly  how  far 
he  has  fallen,  how  conscious  he  has  himself  become  of  the  depth  of  his 
fall. 

In  this  prayer  of  the  rich  man  we  have  the  only  invocation  of  saints 
in  Scripture,  and  certainly  not  a  very  encouraging  one.  He  can  speak 
of  ^'father  Ahrahairi'^  and  his  "father^s  house,"  but  there  is  another 
Father,  of  whom  he  will  know  nothing — the  Father  whom  the  Prodigal 
had  found.  For  he  is  as  far  as  heaven  is  from  hell,  from  the  faith  of 
the  prophet :  "  Doubtless  thou  art  our  Father,  though  Abraham  be  igno- 
rant of  us,  and  Israel  acknowledge  us  not."  And  the  pity  which  he 
refused  to  show,  he  fails  to  obtain.  We  have  here  the  reverse  of  the 
beatitude,  "  Blessed  are  the  merciful,  for  they  shall  obtain  mercy." 
With  what  measure  he  meted,  it  is  measured  to  him  again.  The  crumbs 
which  he  denied,  issue  in  the  drop  of  water  which  is  denied  to  him.f 
Here  is  one  who  has  not  obeyed  the  admonition  of  the  preceding  para- 
ble, who  has  not  made  friends  of  the  mammon  of  unrighteousness,  and 
now  that  he  has  failed,  has  none  to  receive  him  into  everlasting  habita- 
tions. That  Abraham's  reply  contains  a  refusal  of  his  petition  is  clear; 
yet  it  is  not  so  certain  what  exact  meaning  we  shall  attribute  to  his 
words:  "  Thou  in  thy  life-time  receivedst  thy  good  things."  There  are 
two  explanations; — the  first  and  the  commonest  one  would  make  "thy 
good  things,"  to  signify,  temporal  felicities  ;  these,  which  were  goods  to 
thee,  which  thou  esteemedst  the  best  and  highest  goods,  and  wouldst 
know  of  no  other,  thou  receivedst ;  and  Abraham's  reply  would  then  be 
this :  "  Son,  thou  hadst  thy  choice,  the  things  eternal  or  the  things  tem- 
poral, this  life  or  that ;  thou  didst  choose  that :  but  now,  when  that  is 
run  through,  it  is  idle  to  think  of  altering  thy  choice,  and  having  even 
the  slightest  portion  in  this  life  also."  But  the  other  explanation  that 
would  make  "  thy  good  things"  to  be  good  actions  or  good  qualities, 
which  in  some  small  measure  Dives  possessed,  and  for  which  he  received 
in  this  life  his  reward,  I  cannot  give  better  than  in  the  words  of  Bishop 
Sanderson.:}:  The  answer  of  Abraham  was  as  though  he  had  said,  "If 
thou  hadst  anything  good  in  thee,  remember  thou  hast  had  thy  reward 
in  earth  already,  and  now  there  remaineth  for  thee  nothing  but  the  full 
punishment  of  thine  ungodliness  there  in  hell :  but  as  for  Lazarus  he  hath 
had  the  chastisement  of  his  infirmities  [his  '  evil  things']  on  earth  already, 

*  Augustine  :   Superbus  temporis,  mendicus  inferni. 

t  Augustine :  Desideravit  guttam,  qui  non  dedit  micam  ;  a  thought  which  makes 
Gregory  the  Great  exclaim  (Horn.  40  in  Evang.)  :  Oh  quanta  est  subtiiitas  judiciorum. 
Dei !     And  Bengel  observes,  Lingua,  maxime  pecca.rat. 

I  In  a  sermon  on  Ahab's  repentance  (1  Kin.  xxi.  29). 


368  THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS. 

and  now  remaineth  for  him  nothing  but  the  full  reward  of  his  godliness 
here  in  heaven."  Presently  before  he  has  said,  "  For  as  God  rewardetb 
those  few  good  things  that  are  in  evil  men  with  these  temporal  benefits, 
for  whom  yet  in  his  justice  he  reserveth  eternal  danmation,  as  the  due 
wages,  by  that  justice,  of  their  graceless  impenitency,  so  he  punishetb 
those  remnants  of  sin  that  are  in  godly  n>en  with  these  temporal  afflic- 
tions, for  whom  yet  in  his  mercy  he  reserveth  eternal  salvation,  as  the 
due  wages,  yet  by  that  mercy  only,  of  their  faith  and  repentance  and 
holy  obedience."  This  was  Chrysostom's  view  of  the  passage,*  and 
Gregory  the  Great,  who  in  general  follows  Augustine,f  has  here  an 
independent  exposition,  and  strongly  maintains  this  meaning  of  the 
words,:^  which  has  certainly  something  to  commend  it. 

But  whether  there  be  in  the  words  such  a  meaning  or  not,  this  is  in 
them,  as  in  so  many  other  passages  of  Scripture,  namely,  that  the  re- 
ceiving of  this  world's  good  without  any  portion  of  its  evil,  the  course  of 
an  unbroken  prosperity,  is  ever  a  sign  and  augury  of  ultimate  reproba- 
tion.§  {Ps.  xvii.  4;  Luke  vi.  24,  25.)  Nor  is  the  reason  of  this  hard 
to  perceive ;  for  there  being  in  every  man  a  large  admixture  of  that 
dross  which  has  need  to  be  purged  out,  and  which  can  only  be  purged 
out  by  the  fire  of  pain  and  affliction,  he  who  is  not  cast  into  this  fire  is 
left  with  all  his  dross  in  him,  with  his  evil  unpurged,  and  therefore  can 
be  no  partaker  of  that  holiness  without  which  no  ntan  shall  see  God. 
Thus  Dives,  to  his  endless  loss,  had  in  this  life  received  good  things 
without  any  share  of  evil. |[     But  now  all  is  changed:  Lazarus,  who  re- 

*  De  Laz.,  Cone.  3.  He  lays  a  stress  on  the  dwi^affa,  recepisti,  not  acceprsti  ; 
see  too  Theophylact  (in  loc.)  Certainly  the  other  five  passages  of  St.  Luke,  in  which 
ano\ap[iavnv  occurs,  (vi.  34,  twice ;  xv.  27 ;  xviii.  30  ;  xxiii.  41,)  quite  bear  him  out 
in  his  remark. 

1"  Augustine's  exclamation  here,  O  mundi  bona,  apud  inferos  mala  !  shows  that  the 
explanation  was  his. 

X  Horn.  40  in  Evaiig.  :  Dum  dicitur,  Recepisti  bona  in  vita,  tudjndicatur  et  Dives 
iste  boni  aliquid  habuisse,  ex  quo  in  hac  viia  bona  reciperet.  Rursumque,  dum  de  La- 
zaro  dicitur,  quia  recepit  mala,  profecto  monstratur  et  Lazarus  habuisse  malum  aliquod, 
quod  purgaretur.  Sed  ilium  paupertas  afflixit  et  tersit,  istum  abundantia  reniuneravit 
et  repulit.  Cf.  Moral.,  1.  5,  c.  1.  In  like  manner  the  Jewish  doctors  said  :  Quemad- 
modum  in  seculo  futuro  piis  rependitur  prsemiuni  boni  operis  etiam  levissimi,  quod  per- 
petrarunt,  ita  in  seculo  hoc  rependitur  impiis  premium  cujuscunque  levissimi  boni  ope- 
ns,—a  saying  which  Gfrorer  {Urchristenthum,  v.  2,  p.  171),  applies  here. 

^  Augustine  :  Quid  infelicius  felicitate  peccantium  ? 

II  Thus  in  the  .Jewish  books  the  scholar  of  an  eminent  Rabbi  found  his  master  one 
day  in  extreme  affliction  and  pain,  and  began  to  laugh,  while  all  the  other  scholars 
were  weeping  round  him.  Being  upbraided  for  this,  he  answered,  that  while  he  saw 
in  times  past  ills  master  in  such  uninterrupted  prosperity,  he  had  often  feared  lest  he 
'was  receiving  his  portion  in  this  world  ;  but  now  seeing  him  so  afflicted,  he  took  cour- 


THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS.  •  359 

ceived  in  this  mortal  life  evil  things,  is  comforted,  but  Dives  is  torment- 
ed ;  for  he  had  sown  only  to  the  flesh,  and  therefore,  when  the  order  of 
things  has  commenced  in  which  the  flesh  has  no  part,  he  can  only  reap 
in  misery  and  emptiness,  in  the  hungry  longing  and  unsatisfied  desire  of 
the  soul. 

Moreover,  besides  that  law  of  retaliation,  which  requires  that  the 
unmerciful  should  not  receive  mercy,  the  fact  is  brought  home  to  the 
conscience  of  him  who  was  once  the  rich  man,  that  with  death  the  sepa- 
ration of  the  elements  of  good  and  evil,  elements  which  in  this  world  are 
mingled  and  in  confusion,  begins.  Like  is  gathered  to  like,  good  by  na- 
tural affinity  to  good,  and  evil  to  evil — and  this  separation  is  permanent. 
*'  Between  us  and  you  there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed"  not  a  mere  handbreadth 
only,  as  the  Jews  fabled,  but  "  a  great  gulf,'"  and  not  merely  there,  but 
^^ fixed  "*  there, — an  eternal  separation,  a  yawning  chasm,  too  deep  to 
be  filled  up,  too  wide  to  be  bridged  over,  so  that  there  is  no  passing  from 
one  side  to  the  other ;  "  They  who  would  pass  from  hence  to  you  cannot, 
neither  can  they  pass  to  us  that  would  come  from  thence."  Now,  the  lat- 
ter affirmation  is  easily  intelligible,  for  we  can  quite  understand  the  lost 
desiring  to  pass  out  of  their  state  of  pain  to  the  place  of  rest  and  blessed- 
ness, but  it  is  not  quite  so  easy  to  understand  the  reverse — "  they  who 
would  pass  from  hence  to  you  cannot."  The  desire  of  passing  thither 
cannot,  of  course,  be  for  the  purpose  of  changing  their  condition  ;  but 
they  cannot  pass,  he  would  say,  even  for  a  season,  they  have  no  power 
to  yield  even  a  moment's  solace  to  any  that  are  in  that  place,  however 
they  may  desire  it.  Yet  here  the  difficulty  suggests  itself.  Can  they, 
being  full  of  love,  otherwise  than  greatly  desire  it?  Nay,  is  not  such  a 
longing  implied  in  the  very  words  of  Abraham?  And  if  they  do  thus 
greatly  desire  it,  and  yet  it  may  not  be,  must  not  this  trouble  and  cast  a 
shade  even  upon  a  heavenly  felicity  1  A  question  vvhich  must  wait  for 
its  solution  ;  for  all  the  answers  which  commonly  are  given  do  not 
reach  it. 

But  though  repulsed  for  himself,  he  has  yet  a  request  to  urge  for 
others.  If  Abraham  cannot  send  Lazarus  to  that  world  of  woe,  at  least 
he  can  cause  liim  to  return  to  the  earth  which  he  has  so  lately  quitted ; 
there  is  no  such  gulf  intervening  there  : — "  I  pray  thee,  therefore,  father, 
that  thou  wouldst  send  him  to  my  father'' s  house,  for  I  have  five  brethren, 
that  he  may  testify  unto  them,  lest  they  also  come  unto  this  place  of  tor- 
ment."    He  and  they,  Sadducees  at  heart,  though  it  might  be  Pharisees 

age  again,  and  believed  that  his  good  things  were  still  to  come.     (\Ieuschen's  N.  T. 
ex  Talm.,  Must.,  p.  66.) 

*  Augustine  {Ad  Evod.,  Ep.  164) :  Hiatus  .  .  .  non  solilm  est,  verum  etiam  fir- 
matus  est. 


370  '  THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS. 

in  name,  perhaps  oftentimes  had  mocked  together,  at  that  unseen  world 
which  now  he  was  finding  so  fearful  a  reality  ;*  and  that  it  was  such,  he 
would  now  desire  by  Lazarus  to  warn  them.  Lazarus  will  be  able  to 
"testify,"  to  speak,  that  is,  of  things  which  he  has  seen.j-  In  this  anxiety  for 
his  brethren's  good,  which  he,  who  hitherto  had  been  merely  selfish,  ex- 
presses, some  have  found  the  evidence  of  a  better  mind  beginning,  and 
the  proof  that  suffering  was  already  doing  its  work  in  him,  was  awaken- 
ing in  him  the  slumbering  germ  of  good.:}:  With  this  view,  were  it  the 
right  one,  would  of  necessity  be  connected  his  own  ultimate  restoration, 
and  the  whole  doctrine  of  future  suffering  not  being  vindicative  and  eter- 
nal, but  corrective  and  temporary :  a  doctrine  which  will  always  find 
favour  with  all  those  who  have  no  deep  insight  into  the  evil  of  sin,  no 
earnest  view  of  the  task  and  responsibilities  of  life  ;  especially  when,  as 
too  often,  they  are  bribed  to  hold  it  by  a  personal  interest,  by  a  lurking 
consciousness  that  they  themselves  are  not  earnestly  striving  to  enter  at 
the  strait  gate,  that  their  own  standing  in  Christ  is  insecure  or  none. 
But  the  rich  man's  request  grows  out  of  another  root.  There  lies  in  it 
a  secret  justifying  of  himself,  and  accusing  of  God.  What  a  bitter  re- 
proach against  God  and  against  the  old  economy  is  here  involved :  "  If 
only  I  had  been  sufficiently  warned,  if  only  God  had  given  me  sufficient- 
ly clear  evidence  of  these  things,  of  the  need  of  repentance,  of  this  place 
as  the  goal  of  a  sensual  worldly  life,  I  had  never  come  hither.  But 
though  I  was  not  duly  warned,  let  at  least  my  brethren  be  so." 

Abraham's  answer  is  brief  and  almost  stern ;  rebuking,  as  was  fit, 
this  evil  thought  of  his  heart :  "  They  are  warned  ;  they  have  enough  to 
keep  them  from  your  place  of  torment,  if  only  they  will  use  it.  They 
have  Moses  and  the  prophets,  let  them  hear  them."  Our  Lord  then  clear- 
ly did  not  see  an  entire  keeping  back  of  the  doctrine  of  life  eternal  and 
an  after  retribution  in  the  Pentateuch,  but  to  hear  Moses  was  to  hear  of 
these  things;  as  elsewhere  more  at  length  he  showed.  (Matt.  xxii.  31, 
32.)  But  the  suppliant  will  not  so  easily  be  put  to  silence.  "  Nay,  fa- 
ther Abraham,  hut  if  one  went  unto  them  from  the  dead  they  will  repent." 

*  Augustine  {Serm.  41) :  Non  dubito  quia  cum  ipsis  fratribus  suis  loquens  de  Pro- 
phetis  monentibu3  bona,  prohibentibus  mala,  terrentibus  de  tormentis  futuris,  et  futura 
praemia  promittentibus,  irridebat  base  omnia,  dicens  cum  fratribus  suis,  Quae  vita  post 
mortem  1  quae  rnemoria  putredinis  ?  qui  sensus  cineris  1 .  .  .  quis  inde  reversus  audi- 
tus  est  ? 

t  In  the  legend  of  Er  the  Pamphylian  (Plato's  Rep.,  1.  10,  c.  13),  he  is  to  return 
from  the  place  where  souls  are  judged,  !xyyc\ov  avQ^xiiruH  ycviaOai  tmv  Ikci,  of  the  great- 
ness of  the  rewards  of  the  just,  the  drcadfulness  of  the  doom  of  sinners. 

t  Aquinas  (Sum.  Theol.,  Siipp.  ad.  3""  part.,  qu.  98,  art.  4)  has  a  discussion  to 
which  this  verse  gives  occasion  :  Utruin  daninati  in  inferno  vellent  alios  esse  damnatos, 
qui  non  sunt  damnati  ?     He  determines,  despite  this  passage,  that  they  would. 


THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS.  37J 

As  it  is  true  of  the  faithful  that  their  works  do  follow  Ihem,  and  that  their 
temper  here  is  their  temper  in  heaven,  so  not  less  does  this  man's  eon- 
tempt  of  God's  word,  which  he  showed  on  earth,  following  him  beyond 
the  grave  ;*  that  Word  cannot  suffice  to  save  men ;  they  must  have 
something  else  to  lead  them  to  repentance.  We  have  here  re-appearing 
in  hell  that  "Show  us  a  sign  that  we  may  believe,"  which  was  so  often 
on  the  lips  of  the  Pharisees  on  earth.  They  believe,  or  at  least  think 
they  would  believe,  signs  and  portents,  but  will  not  believe  God's  Word. 
(Isai.  viii.  19,  20.)  A  vain  expectation  !  for  in  the  words  of  Abraham, 
"  If  they  hear  not  Moses  and  the  prophets,  neither  will  they  be  persuaded, 
though  one  rose  from  the  dead."  These  words  demand  to  be  accurately 
considered.  Dives  had  said,  "  they  will  repent;  "  Abraham  replies,  they 
will  not  even  "  be  persuaded."  Dives  had  said,  "  if  one  loent  unto  them 
from  the  dead  ;"  Abraham,  with  a  prophetic  glance  at  the  world's  unbe- 
lief in  far  greater  matter,  makes  answer,  "  No,  not  if  one  rose  from  the 
dead."  He  in  fact  is  saying  to  him,  "  A  far  greater  act  than  you  de- 
mand would  be  ineffectual  for  producing  a  far  slighter  effect :  you  sup- 
pose that  wicked  men  would  repent  on  the  return  of  a  spirit ;  I  tell  you 
they  would  not  even  be  persuaded  by  the  rising  of  one  from  the  dead.""}" 
This  reply  of  Abraham's  is  most  weighty,  for  the  insight  it  gives  us 
into  the  nature  of  faith,  that  it  is  a  moral  act,  an  act  of  the  will  and  the 
affections  no  less  than  of  the  understanding,  something  therefore  which 
cannot  be  forced  by  signs  and  miracles  :  for  where  there  is  a  determined 
alienation  of  the  will  and  affections  from  the  truth,  no  impression  which 
these  miracles  will  make,  even  if  they  be  allowed  to  be  genuine,  will  be 
more  than  transitory.  Nor  will  there  fail  always  to  be  a  loophole  some- 
where or  other,  by  which  unbelief  can  escape  ;:j:  and  this  is  well,  or  we 
should  have  in  the  Church  the  faith  of  devils,  who  believe  and  tremble. 
AVhen  the  historical  Lazarus  was  raised  from  the  dead,  the  Pharisees 
were  not  by  this  miracle  persuaded  of  the  divine  mission  and  authority 
of  Christ,  and  yet  they  did  not  deny  the  reality  of  the  miracle  itself. 
(John  xi.  47  ;  xii.  10.)     A  greater  too  than  Lazarus  has  returned  from 

*  Bengel :  Vilipendium  Scripturae  miser,  relicto  luxu,  secum  intulit  in  inferno. 

t  It  is  a  pityjhat  we  have  not  given  the  Uv  rn  of  ver.  31,  "  if  one,"  as  we  have 
rightly  done  in  the  verse  preceding.  Observe  the  change  of  words  :  TropevBrj  in  the  re- 
quest of  Dives;  dvaoTrj  in  the  reply  of  Abraham  ;  dnd  vf/tpJi/  in  the  request  ;  Ik  vcKpCii/ 
in  the  reply. 

t  When  for  instance  Spinoza  declared  himself  ready  to  renounce  his  system  and 
to  become  a  Christian,  if  only  he  were  convinced  of  the  truth  of  the  raising  of  the 
historical  Lazarus,  he  knew  very  well  that  in  his  sense  of  the  word  convince,  and  with 
the  kind  of  evidence  thut  he  would  have  acquired,  it  was  impossible  to  satisfy  his  de- 
mand.    (See  Bayle,  Diction.,  Art.  Spinoze,  note  r.) 


372  THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS. 

the  World  of  spirits ;  nay,  has  risen  from  the  dead  ;  and  yet  what  mul- 
titudes who  acknowledge  the  fact,  and  acknowledge  it  as  setting  a  seal 
to  all  his  claims  to  be  heard  and  obeyed,  yet  are  not  brought  by  this  ac- 
knowledgment at  all  nearer  to  repentance  and  the  obedience  of  faith. 
And  it  is  very  observable,  how  exactlj'-  in  the  spirit  of  Abraham's  refu- 
sal to  send  Lazarus,  the  Lord  himself  acted  after  his  resurrection.  He 
showed  himself,  not  to  the  Pharisees,  not  to  his  enemies,  "  not  to  all  the 
people,  but  unto  witnesses  chosen  before  of  God,"  (Acts  x.  41,)  to  his 
own  disciples  alone.  It  was  a  judgment  on  the  others,  that  no  sign 
should  be  given  them  but  the  sign  of  the  prophet  Jonah,  yet  it  was  a 
mercy  also,  for  they  would  not  have  been  persuaded,  even  by  one  that 
had  risen  from  the  dead.  At  the  same  time  it  is  not  to  be  denied  that 
in  Christ's  resurrection  there  was  a  satisfaction  of  the  longing  of  man's 
heart,  that  one  should  return  from  the  world  beyond  the  grave,  and  give 
assurance  of  the  reality  of  that  world, — a  longing  which  Abraham  could 
not  satisfy,  but  which  Christ  did,  when  he  died  and  rose  again,  and  ap- 
peared unto  men,  having  the  keys  of  death  and  of  Hades.* 

It  remains  only  to  give  a  slight  sketch  of  their  interpretation,  who 
maintain  that,  besides  its  literal  meaning,  the  parable  has  also  an  alle- 
gorical ; — though  of  these  some  find  this  only  by  the  way,  and  as  some- 
thing merely  subordinate,  an  interpretation  which  they  throw  out  and 
leave  to  every  one  to  allow  it  what  value  he  chooses:  while  others  make 
it  the  chief  moral  of  the  parable,  and  affirm  that  it  was  the  primary  pur- 
pose of  the  Lord  to  set  forth  the  relations  between  Jew  and  Gentile. 
Dives  then,  as  already  has  been  said,  represents  the  Jewish  nation  clad 
in  the  purple  of  the  king,  and  the  fine  linen  of  the  priest  f — the  kingdom 


*  Augustine  {Enarr.  in  Ps.  cxlvii.  14)  :  O  Domine,  gratias  misericordise  tuae  ; 
voluisti  mod,  ut  aliquis  ab  inferis  surgeret,  et  ipse  aliquis  non  quicumque,  sed  Veritas 
surrexit  ab  inferis.  In  Plato's  legend  of  the  revenant,  alluded  to  already,  (p.  370,  note,) 
there  is  a  remarkable  witness  for  this  craving  in  the  mind  of  man,  that  he  who  gives 
assurance  of  the  reality  of  the  things  after  death  should  have  himself  returned  from  the 
world  of  spirits, — a  longing  that  for  us  has  found  its  satisfaction  in  the  resurrection 
of  Christ.  The  same  reappears  in  that,  which  however  is  plainly  but  an  imitation  of 
Plato's  narrative,  the  story  of  Thespesius  in  Plutarch's  essay,  De  sera  Numinis  vin- 
dictd.  • 

t  Augustine  {QucEst.  Evang.,  1.  2,  qu.  38) :  In  Divite  intelligantur  superbi  Judapo- 
rum,  ignorantes  Dei  justitiatn,  et  suam  volentes  constituere  .  .  .  Epulatio  spiendida, 
jactantia  legis  est,  in  qu&,  gloriabantur  plus  ad  pompam  relalionis  abutentes  eft.,  qu^m 
ad  necessitatem  salulis  utentes.  Compare  Gregory  the  Great  (f/om.  40  in  Evang.: 
and  Moral.,  1.  25,  c.  13)  and  II.  de  Sto  Victore  {Annott.  in  Luc.) :  Dives  iste  Judai- 
cum  populum  designat,  qui  cultum  vitae  exterius  habuit,  et  acceptse  legis  deliciis  usiis 
est  ad  nitorem,  non  ad  utilitatem.  Theophylact:  Jlop'bipav  KaXfiiaaov  IvciiivTo, [iaaiXdav 
iX'^"  '"'"'  icpo)aufni>.     He  refers  the  faring  sumptuously  every  day  to  the  daily  sacrifice. 


THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS.  373 

of  priests  or  royal  priesthood.*  They  fared  sumptuously  every  day,"they 
were  amply  furnished  with  all  spiritual  blessings  :  "  enriched,"  as  The- 
ophylact  describes  it,  "with  all  knowledge  and  wisdom,  and  with  the 
precious  oracles  of  God."  They  were  the  vineyard  which  the  Lord  had 
planted,  and  of  which  he  could  say,  "  What  could  have  been  done  more 
to  my  vineyard,  that  I  have  not  done  in  it  ?"  (Isai.  v.  2,  4.)  They  were 
the  people  whom  he  had  made  to  ride  on  the  high  places  of  the  earth, 
and  to  whom  pertained  "  the  adoption,  and  the  glory,  and  the  covenants, 
and  the  giving  of  the  law,  and  the  service  of  God,  and  the  promises." 
But  all  these  things  were  given  them,  not  that  they  might  make  their 
boast  of  them,  and  rest  there,  comparing  themselves  for  self-exaltation 
with  the  heathen  round  them,  who  were  perishing  without  the  know- 
ledge of  God,  but  that  they  might  spread  around  them  the  true  faith  and 
knowledge  of  God.  Yet  they  did  not  so ;  "  Behold,"  said  St.  Paul,  "  thou 
art  called  a  Jew,  and  restest  in  the  law,  and  makest  thy  boast  of  God, 
and  knowest  his  will,  and  approvest  the  things  that  are  more  excellent, 
being  instructed  out  of  the  law,  and  ait  confident  that  thou  thyself  art  a 
guide  of  the  blind,  a  light  of  them  that  are  in  darkness."  But  meanwhile, 
though  they  thus  boasted,  they  did  nothing  effectual  to  scatter  the  dark- 
ness of  the  heathen  ;  for  they  had  forsaken  their  true  position,  misunder- 
stood their  true  glory  ;  and  this  talent  of  talents,  the  knowledge  of  the 
true  God,  these  privileges,  and  this  election,  they  had  turned  into  a  self- 
ish thing.  For  they  counted  that  God  had  blessed  them  •  aZone  of  all 
people,  instead  of,  as  was  the  truth,  above  all  people  ;  they  stopped  the 
blessing,  of  which  they  should  have  been  the  channel,  and  through  them 
the  name  of  God  was  blasphemed  among  the  Gentiles — he  was  pi'esented 
to  the  Gentiles  under  a  false  character  and  in  an  unworthy  light.f 

Lazarus  the  beggar  ^  lay  at  their  gate  covered  with  sores  :  at  the 
gate,  and  without  it,  for  the  Gentiles  were  "  aliens  from  the  common- 
wealth of  Israel,  and  strangers  from  the  covenants  of  promise  :"—fuU 
of  sores,  for  their  sins  and  their  miseries  were  infinite.  These  sores  of 
the  Gentile  world  are  enumerated  by  St.  Paul,  Rom.  i.  23-32 ;  though 
the  term  vvill  include,  besides  the  sins,  the  penal  miseries  which  were 

In  modem  times  Lomeier  has  wrought  out  this  view  at  length,  Ohss.  Analytico-Didact. 
ad  Luc.  xvi.  p.  91,  seq.  See  Von  Meyer's  Blatter  fUr  hOhere  Wahreit,  v.  6,  p.  88, 
for  an  exposition  not  historically  the  same,  but  agreeing  with  the  spirit  of  this  one.  It 
is  in  this  sense  also  that  Swedenborg  understands  the  parable. 

*  Baai\etov  lepaTevfta,  Exod.  xix.  6  ;  compare  1  Pet.  ii.  9. 

t  H.  de  Sto  Victore  :  Non  ad  caritatem  sed  ad  elationem  doctrinam  legis  habuit. 
And  Gregory  {Horn.  40)  explains  the  refusal  of  the  crumbs :  Gentiles  ad  cognitionera 
legis,  superbi  Judaei  non  admittebant. 

X  Theophylact :   TLevrn  dd<i}v  'xapiTiav  Kai  <jo<pias. 


374  THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS. 

consequent  on  those  sins.  But  these  sores,  these  "  wounds  and  bruises 
and  putrifying  sores,"  (Isai.  i.  6,)  were  neither  closed,  nor  bound,  nor 
mollified  with  ointment,  so  that  the  dogs  came  and  licked  them.  Here, 
as  must  so  often  happen,  there  is  a  question  whether  this  last  circum- 
stance  has  any  distinct  signification,  or  is  added  only  to  complete  the 
picture.  Are  there  indicated  here  the  slight  and  miserable  assuage- 
ments of  its  wants  and  woes, — the  wretched  medicine  for  its  hurts, 
which  the  heathen  world  derived  from  its  poets  and  philosophers  and 
legislators,  as  Lomeier  proposes  ?  or  is  it  meant  that  even  in  this  depth 
of  man's  misery,  nature  spake  to  him,  in  faint  and  feeble  accents,  of 
mercy  and  love,  (Acts  xiv.  17,)  and  evidently  sympathized  with  man, 
so  that  he  found  comfort  in  her  sympathy  ?  But  the  other  circumstance 
has  plainly  a  meaning,  namely,  that  the  beggar  desired  to  be  fed  from 
the  crumbs  that  fell  from  the  rich  man's  table.  It  cannot,  indeed,  be 
said  that  the  Gentiles  directly  desired  the  satisfaction  of  their  spiritual 
hunger  from  the  Jews,  for  we  know  this,  from  one  cause  or  other,  was 
not  in  a  very  great  degree  the  case;  though  indeed  the  spread  of  Ju- 
daism, and  the  inclination  which  existed  to  embrace  it,  is  more  than 
once  noted  by  the  Roman  writers  in  the  times  of  the  first  emperors.* 
But  the  yearning  of  their  souls  after  something  better  and  truer  than 
aught  which  they  possessed,  was,  in  fact,  a  yearning  after  that  which 
the  Jew  did  possess,  and  which,  had  he  been  faithful  to  his  privileges 
and  his  position,  he  would  certainly  have  imparted.  Christ  was  "  the 
Desire  of  all  nations  ;"  every  yearning  after  deliverance  from  the  bond- 
acre  of  sin  and  corruption,  which  found  utterance  in  the  heart  of  any 
heathen,  was  in  truth  a  yearning  after  him  ;  so  that  implicitly  and  un- 
consciously the  heathen  was  desiring  to  be  fed  from  the  Jews'  table,  de- 
siring from  thence  an  alleviation  of  his  wants,  but  desiring  it  in  vain. 

The  dying  of  Lazarus,  and  his  reception  into  Abraham's  bosom,  will 
find  their  answer  in  the  abolition  of  that  economy  under  which  the  Gen- 
tile was  an  outcast  from  the  covenant,  and  in  his  subsequent  entrance 
into  all  the  immunities  and  consolations  of  the  kingdom  of  God  ; — 
"  which  in  time  past  were  not  a  people,  but  are  now  the  people  of  God, 
which  had  not  obtained  mercy,  but  now  have  obtained  mercy."  (1  Pet.  i. 
10;  Ephes.  ii.  11-13.)  But  Dives  dies  also, — the  Jewish  economy 
also  comes  to  an  end, — and  now  Dives  is  in  torments, — "  in  heU?^'  surely 
not  too  strong  a  phrase  to  describe  the  misery  and  despair,  the  madness 
and  blindness  and  astonishment  of  heart,  which  are  the  portion  of  a 
people,  that  having  once  known  God,  fall  from  that  knowledge,  of  an 
apostate  and  God-abandoned  people.     The  fundamental  idea  of  hell  is 

*  See  Neander's  History  of  the  Church,  v.  1,  p.  84,  (English  tranal.) 


THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS.  375 

exclusion  from  the  presence  of  God ;  and  this  utter  exclusion  was  the 
portion  of  that  people  upon  whom  his  wrath  came  to  the  uttermost. 
Who  can  read  the  history  of  the  latter  days  of  the  Jewish  nation,  an  his- 
tory which  has  been  providentially  preserved  to  us  in  some  of  its  minutest 
details,  of  the  time  when  that  nation  seemed  to  realize  the  fable  of  the 
scorpion  girdled  with  fire  and  fixing  its'  sting  in  its  own  body,  and  not 
feel  that  all  which  really  constitutes  hell  was  already  there  ?  Nay,  and 
ever  since  have  they  not  been  "  m  torments?"  In  proof  let  us  turn  to 
that  sure  Avord  of  prophecy,  which  foretells  their  doom  should  they  fall 
away,  as  they  have  fallen  away,  from  their  God ;  for  instance,  to  Lev. 
xxvi.  14-39,  or  Deut.  xxviii.  15-68,  or  call  to  mind  the  Lord's  words 
which  speak  of  the  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth,  which  shall  be  their 
portion,  when  they  see  the  despised  Gentiles  coming  from  the  east  and  the 
west,  from  the  north  and  from  the  south,  and  sitting  down  in  the  kingdom 
of  God,  while  they  themselves  are  thrust  out.*  (Luke  xiii.  28-30.) 
But  as  Dives  looked  for  some  consolation  from  Lazarus,  whom  before 
he  despised,  so  the  Jew  is  looking  for  the  assuagement  of  his  miseries 
through  some  bettering  of  his  outward  estate, — some  relaxation  of  sever- 
ities imposed  upon  him, — some  improvement  of  his  civil  condition, 
— things  which  he  looks  for  from  the  kingdoms  of  the  world,  and  which 
if  they  gave  him,  would  be  but  as  a  drop  of  water  on  the  tongue.  He 
knows  not  that  the  wrath  of  God  does  in  truth  constitute  his  misery ; 
and  so  long  as  this  is  unremoved,  he  is  incapable  of  true  comfort.  The 
alleviation  which  he  craves  is  not  given,  it  were  in  vain  to  give  it ; — the 
one  true  alleviation  would  be  that  he  should  be  himself  received  into  the 
kingdom  of  God,  that  he  should  bewail  his  guilt,  and  look  on  him  whom 
he  pierced,  and  mourn  because  of  him:  then  consolations  would  abound 
to  him  ;  but  without  this,  everything  else  is  but  as  the  drop  of  water  on  the 
fiery  tongue.  That  there  is  no  allusion  in  the  parable  to  any  future  time, 
when  the  great  gulf  of  unbelief  which  now  separates  the  Jew  from  his 
blessings  shall  be  filled  up,  makes  nothing  against  this  interpretation ; 
since  exactly  the  same  argument  might  be  applied,  and  we  know  incor- 
rectly, to  call  in  question  the  ordinary  explanation  of  the  parable  of  the 
Wicked  Husbandmen ;  nothing  is  there  said  of  the  vineyard  being  re- 
stored to  its  first  cultivators,  which  yet  we  know  will  one  day  be  the  case. 
By  the  five  brethren  of  Dives  will  be  set  forth  to  us  according  to  this 
scheme  all  who  hereafter,  in  a  like  condition  and  with  like  advantages, 
are  tempted  to  the  same  abuse  of  their  spiritual  privileges.  The  Gen- 
tile Church  is  in  one  sense  Lazarus  brought  into  Abraham's  bosom  ;  but 
when  it  sins  as  the  Jewish  Church  did  before  it,  glorying  in  its  gifts,  but 

*   Theophylact:   'E/tj  <^Xoyi  KaraKoiovTai  Tov  (^QSvov, 


376  UNPROFITABLE  SERVANTS. 

not  using  them  for  the  calling  out  of  the  spiritual  life  of  men,  contented 
to  see  in  its  very  bosom  a  population  that  are  outcast,  save  in  name,  from 
its  privileges  and  blessings,  and  to  see  beyond  its  limits  millions  of  hea. 
thens  to  whom  it  has  little  or  no  care  to  impart  the  knowledge  of  Christ 
and  of  his  salvation, — then  in  so  far  as  it  thus  sins,  it  is  only  too  like 
the  five  brethren  of  Dives,  who*<are  in  danger  of  coming  with  him,  and 
for  sins  similar  to  his,  to  this  place  of  torment.  Nor  are  we  to  imagine 
that,  before  judgment  is  executed  upon  a  Church  thus  forgetful  of  its 
high  calling,  it  will  be  roused  from  its  dream  of  security  by  any  startling 
summonses, — any  novel  signs  and  wonders, — any  new  revelation, — any 
Lazarus  rising  from  the  dead  and  bidding  it  to  repent.  It  has  enough  to 
remind  it  of  its  duty, — it  has  its  deposit  of  truth, — its  talent  wherewith 
it  was  bidden  to  trade  till  its  Lord's  return.  So  that  the  latter  part  of 
the  parable,  thus  contemplated,  speaks  to  us  Gentiles  in  the  very  spirit 
of  those  awful  words  which  St.  Paul  addressed  to  the  Gentile  converts  at 
Rome  :  "  Behold,  therefore,  the  goodness  and  severity  of  God :  on  them 
which  fell  severity,  but  towards  thee  goodness,  if  thou  continue  in  his 
goodness  ;  otherwise  thou  also  shalt  be  cut  off."     (Rom.  xi.  22.) 


PARABLE  XXYII. 


UNPROFITABLE    SERVANTS. 

Luke  xvii.  7-10. 

Some  interpreters  find  a  connexion  between  this  parable  and  the  dis- 
course which  precedes  it,  while  others  affirm  that  no  such  can  be  traced, 
— that  the  parable  must  be  explained  without  any  reference  to  the  say- 
ing concerning  faith  which  goes  immediately  before.  Theophylact  sup- 
poses this  to  be  the  link  between  the  parable  and  the  preceding  verse  : 
the  Lord  had  there  declared  the  great  things  which  a  living  faith  would 
enable  his  disciples  to  perform — how  they  should  remove  mountains ; 
but  then,  lest  these  great  things  which  were  in  the  power  of  their  faith 
should  cause  them  to  fall  into  a  snare  of  pride,  the  parable  was  spoken 
for  the  purpose  of  keeping  them  humble.*     Augustine  confesses  the  dif. 

*  So  Cajetan  :  Petierant  Apostoli  adjungi  sibi  donum  confidentiae,  quod  et  eis  col- 
latum  intelligitur.  Et  quoniam  etiam  superbia  bonis  operibus  insidiatur  ut  pereant, 
ideo  Jesus  adjungit  parabolam  conservativam  eorum  in  vera  recognitione  auimet,  ne 
extollantur. 


UNPROFITABLE  SERVANTS.  377 

ficulty  of  tracing  the  connexion,  and  has  a  very  singular  explanation  of 
the  whole  parable,  which  I  must  be  content  to  refer  to,*  as  it  would  take 
up  considerable  space  to  do  it  justice.  Olshausen  gives  this  explana- 
tion :  The  apostles  by  that  account  which  went  before  of  the  hindrances 
they  would  meet  in  their  work,  (ver.  1,  2,)  of  the  hard  duties,  hard  as 
they  then  seemed  to  them,  which  were  required  of  them,  (ver.  .'5,  4,)  had 
a  longing  awakened  in  them  after  a  speedier  reward.  The  Lord  there- 
fore would  set  before  them  their  true  relation  to  him  ;  that  their  work, 
difficult  or  not,  welcome  or  otherwise,  must  be  done — that  they  were 
not  their  own,  but  his,  and  to  labour  for  him.  If  they  found  their  la- 
bour a  delight,  well  ;  but  if  not,  still  it  was  to  be  done.  Neither  were 
they  to  look  for  their  reward  and  release  from  toil  at  once,f  but  rather 
to  take  example  of  the  servant,  who  though  he  had  been  strenuously 
labouring  all  the  day  in  the  field,  ^^  ploughing  or  feeding  cattle,''^  yet  not 
the  less  when  he  returned  home  had  to  resume  his  labours  in  the  house 
also.  Such  is  his  explanation,  and  no  doubt  he  here  asserts  an  impor- 
tant truth,  and  one  found  in  the  parable ;  but  to  the  connexion,  as  he 
traces  it,  there  is  this  objection,  that  the  request,  "Lord,  increase  our 
faith,"  does  not  seem  to  convey  any  such  meaning  as  he  finds  in  it ;. 
there  is  no  appearance  as  if  those  who  made  it  were  desirous  of  escap- 
ing a  dispensation  committed  to  them,  or  snatching  prematurely  at  a  re- 
ward. Other  expositors  have  neglected  to  seek  any  immediate  connex- 
ion between  the  parable  and  the  context  in  which  it  is  found,  affirming 
that  it  teaches  generally  how  God  is  debtor  to  no  man,  that  all  we  can 
do  is  of  duty,  nothing  of  merit,  and  that  in  all  our  work  we  must  retain 
the  acknowledgment  of  this,  and  carefully  guard  against  all  vainglory 
and  elation  of  heart ;  how  rather  we  must  be  deeply  humbled  before 
God  out  of  the  thought  that,  did  we  do  all,  we  should  only  do  what  we 
were  bound  to  ;  and  how  then  must  it  be,  when  we  fall  so  infinitely  short 
of  that  all  ? 

But  altogether  different  from  any  of  these  interpretations  is  that  first 
formally  proposed,  if  I  mistake  not,  by  Grotius,  and  which  Venema :}: 
has  taken  up  and  strengthened  with  additional  arguments  and  illustra- 
tions. The  parable,  they  say,  is  not  meant  to  represent  at  all  the  stand- 
ing of  the  faithful  under  the  new  covenant,  "the  perfect  law  of  liberty," 
but  the  merely  servile  standing  of  the  Jew  under  the  old,  and  it  grew 
in  this  manner  out  of  the  discourse    preceding.      The  disciples  had. 


*  Quast.  Evang.,  1.  2,  c.  39.    Maldonatus,  who  denies  that  there  is  any  connexion,, 
thinks  Augustine's  very  forced  and  unnatural, 
t  Eidew,  (ver.  7.) 
t  Diss.  Sac  ,  p.  262,  seq. 

25 


378  UNPROFITABLE  SERVANTS. 

asked  for  increase  of  faith.  The  Lord  in  answer  would  teach  them  the 
necessity  and  transcendent  value  of  that  gift  for  which  they  were  ask- 
ing,  would  magnify  its  value,  showing  them  how  all  outward  works 
done  without  this  living  principle  of  free  and  joyful  obedience,  such  as  for 
the  most  part  the  men  of  their  own  nation  were  content  with,  were  merely 
servile,  and  were  justly  recompensed  with  a  merely  servile  reward, — 
that  in  those  God  could  take  no  pleasure,  and  for  them  counted  that  he 
owed  no  thanks  ; — the  servants  who  did  them  were  after  all  unprofitable 
and  of  no  account  in  his  sight. 

The  arguments  of  Grotius  and  Venema  are  mainly  these.  They 
object  to  the  common  interpretation,  that  it  sets  forth  in  a  wrong  aspect 
the  relations  which  exist  between  Christ  and  his  people.  They  ask.  Is 
it  likely  that  the  gracious  Lord  who  in  another  place  said,  *'  Henceforth 
I  call  you  not  servants,  .  .  .  but  I  have  called  you  friends,"  would  here 
wish  to  bring  forward  in  so  strong  a  light  the  service  done  to  him  as  one 
merely  servile,  and  for  which  he  would  render  them  no  thanks  ?  would 
he,  who  ever  sought  to  lead  his  disciples  into  the  recognition  of  their 
filial  relation  to  God,  that  they  had  received  not  the  spirit  of  bondage 
but  of  adoption,  here  throw  them  back  so  strongly  on  their  servile  re- 
lation ?  It  was  not,  they  say,  in  this  spirit  that  he  spake  those  words, 
^'  Blessed  are  those  servants,  whom  the  lord  when  he  cometh  shall  find 
watching  :  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  that  he  shall  gird  himself,  and  make 
"them  sit  down  to  meat,  and  will  come  forth  and  serve  them."  (Luke 
xii-  2X-)  On  the  other  hand  the  parable  does,  they  affirm,  exactly  set 
forth  the  relation  of  the  Jews,  at  least  of  the  greater  part  of  them,  to 
God.  They  were  hired  to  do  a  certain  work,  which  if  they  did,  they 
were,  like  servants,  free  from  stripes :  they  had  too  their  stipend — 
they  ate  and  drank — they  received  their  earthly  reward.  But  going  no 
further  than  this  bare  fulfilling  of  the  things  expressly  enjoined*  them,  and 
fulfilling  them  without  love,  without  zeal,  without  the  filial  spirit  of  faith, 

*  Exactly  the  same  stress  which  they  would  here  lay  on  ra  fiiara^xdivTa  is  laid  by  Ori- 
gen  {In  Rom^,  L  3),  although  his  purpose,  as  will  be  seen,  is  different  :  Donee  quis  hoc 
facit  tantum  quod  debet,  t.  e.,ea  qujE  praecepla  sunt,  inutilis  servusest.  (Luc.  xvii.  10.) 
Si  autem  addas  aliquid  pracceptis,  tunc  non  jam  inutilis  servus  eris,  sed  dicetur  ad  te: 
Euge  serve  bone  et  fidelis.  (Matt.  xxv.  21.)  St.  Bernard  too  {In  Cant.,  Serm.,  11,  c. 
•2,)  without  indeed  making  Origen's  dangerous  use  of  the  passage,  and  lowering  the 
standard  of  piety  for  the  ninety-nine,  in  the  hope  of  exalting  it  for  the  one,  has  implicitly 
the  same  explanation  of  the  passage  as  that  mentioned  in  the  text.  Expounding  Cant, 
i.  2,  he  has  occaeion  to  epeak  of  a  service,  rendered  indeed,  but  without  joy  and  alac- 
rity and  delight,  and  ends  thus:  Denique  in  Evangelio  qui  hoc  soliim,  quod  facere  de- 
bet, facit,  servus  inutilis  reputatur.  Mandata  forsan  utcumque  adimpleo  :  sed  anima 
mea  sicut  terra  sine  aquQ.  in  iUis.  Ut  igitur  holocaustum  meum  pingue  fiat,  osculetur 
me,  quxso,  osculo  oris  sui. 


UNPROFITABLE  SERVANTS.  379 

contented  to  stop  short  when  they  had  just  done  so  much  as  would  ena- 
ble them,  as  they  hoped,  to  escape  punishment,  going  through  their  work 
in  this  temper,  ihey  were  "  unprofitable  servants,"  in  whom  the  Lord 
could  take  no  pleasure,  and  who  could  look  for  no  furtlier  marks  of  fa- 
vour at  his  hands.* 

It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  there  is  something  attractive  in  this  expo- 
sition,f  or  that  it  is  worthy  of  respectful  consideration  ;  but  yet  it  might 
be  fairly  replied  in  this  way  to  the  arguments  of  those  that  uphold  it. 
The  present  parable  need  not  be  opposed  to,  but  rather  should  be  bal- 
anced with,  that  other  saying  of  the  Lord's  (Luke  xii.  37)  quoted  above, 
— should  be  considered  as  supplying  the  counterweight  of  all  such  de- 
clarations. This  is  the  way  God  7nighi  deal  ;  for  we  may  observe,  it  is 
not  said  that  this  is  the  way  he  will  deal,  since  rather  that  other  is  the 
manner  in  which  he  will  actually  bear  himself  towards  his  faithful  ser- 
vants ; — the  one  relation  is  that  which  according  to  the  scrictness  of  jus- 
tice he  might  assume,  the  other  is  that  which  according  to  the  riches  of 
his  grace  he  will  assume.  We,  to  keep  us  humble,  are  evermore  to 
acknowledge  that  upon  that  footing  he  might  put  our  relation  to  him, 
having,  at  the  same  time  this  assurance,  that  so   long  as  we  put  it  upon 

*  Grotius  (in  loc.)  is  especially  rich  in  materials  in  support  of  this  interpretation  of 
the  parable.  From  Maimonides  he  quotes  a  Jewish  proverb,  Ei  datur  praemium  qui 
quid  injussus  facit :  and  from  Chrysostom  (In  Eorn.  viii.)  a  passage  contrasting  the  obe- 
dience of  the  Jew  and  the  Christian  :  KaftTi/oi  61  fo/Sto  Tijiwpiai  Tcavra  eirparTov  dyojxci/ot, 
ol  Si  TTvcvuariKol  iirtdvijia  Kai  n6do),Kal  tovto  SriXovai  rtj  KOi  vTTcp0aii>civ  rii  ETrirdy/iura.  We 
might  compare,  especially  with  that  Jewish  proverb,  one  of  the  Similitudes  in  the  5'Aep- 
Acrrfof  Hernias,  (1.  3,  sim.  5,)  which  is  briefly  this:  An  householder  planted  a  vine- 
yard, and  going  from  home,  left  his  servant  the  task  of  tying  the  vines  to  their  supports, 
and  no  more  ;  but  the  servant  having  finished  this  task,  thought  it  would  profit  the  vine- 
yard, if  also  he  were  to  weed  it  and  dig  it,  which  he  did  ;  and  the  master  found  it  in 
high  order  and  beauty  on  his  return.  Well  pleased  with  his  servant,  because  he  had 
thus  done  more  than  was  enjoined  him,  he  determined  to  give  him  the  adoption  of  son- 
ship,  and  to  make  him  fellow-heir  with  his  own  son.  It  is  true  that  Hermas  makes  an 
application  of  the  similitude  different  from  what  one  would  expect,  and  not  bearing  upon 
our  parable,  but  yet  the  passage  is  in  itself  remarkable.  Seneca  (De  Benef.,  1.  3,  c. 
18-28)  treats  an  interesting  question  which  bears  on  the  present  subject :  An  bene- 
ficium  dare  domino  servus  possit  ?  which  he  answers  in  the  affirmative:  Quamdiu 
praestatur  quod  k  servis  exigi  solet  [rh  Siara^Oivra]  ministerium  est,ubi  plus  qutim  quod 
servo  necesse  est,  beneficium  :  ubi  in  affectum  amici  transit,  desinit  vocari  ministerium. 
.  .  .  Quicquid  est  quod  servilis  officii  formulam  excedit,  quod  non  ex  imperio  sed  et 
voluntate  praestatur,  beneficium  est.     He  has  much  more  on  the  same  subject. 

t  It  is  Wetstein's  also :  Sunt  nimirum  servi  qui  serviunt  serviliter,  hoc  est,  qui  nil 
nisi  jussi  faciunt :  alii  serviunt  liberaliter,  ut  filii  qui,  non  exspectato  mandate,  ex  gene- 
rosa  et  nobili  indole,  sponte  et  injussi  ea  faciunt,  quee  utilia  et  Domino  placitura  credunt. 
lUos  Christus  hie  perstringit  et  vituperat  eo  fine  ut  discipulos  ad  altiorem  gradum  per- 
ducat. 


380  UNPROFITABLE  SERVANTS. 

that  footing,  he  will  not ;  for  so  long,  we  are  capable  of  receiving  his 
fiivours  without  being  corrupted  by  them.  It 'is  only  to  the  humble,  to 
the  self-abased  before  God,  that  he  can  give  grace,  for  wliere  this  humili- 
ty is  not,  it  is  certain  that,  as  the  unclean  vessel  will  altogether  taint 
the  wine  poured  into  it,  so  the  gifts  of  God  will  be  perverted  to  spiritual 
wickednesses,  more  dangerous  and  more  deadly  than  the  natural  corrup- 
tions of  man's  heart.  And  although,  doubtless,  the  relation  of  the 
Christian  to  his  Lord  is  set  forth  here  under  somewhat  a  severer  *  aspect 
than  is  usual  under  the  New  Covenant,  yet  the  experience  of  every 
heart  will  bear  witness  how  needful  it  is  that  this  side  of  the  truth,  as 
well  as  the  other,  should  be  set  out, — that  in  hours  when  we  are  tempted 
to  draw  back,  to  shun  and  to  evade  our  tasks,  we  should  then  feel  that  a 
necessity  is  laid  upon  us, — that  indeed  while  we  do  them  willingly,  we 
do  them  also  the  most  acceptably  :  yet  whether  willingly  or  not,  they 
must  be  done, — that  we  are  servants  who  are  not  to  question  our  Master's 
will,  but  to  do  it.  Good  for  us  it  is  that  we  should  have  the  check  of 
considerations  like  these  upon  us  in  such  moments,  and  should  thus  be 
kept  in  the  way  of  duty,  till  the  time  of  a  more  joyful  and  childlike  obedi- 
ence again  comes  round.  This  fear  does  not  exclude  love,  but  is  its 
true  guardian  :  they  mutually  uphold  and  support  one  another  ;■]"  for 
our  hearts,  while  yet  they  are  not  made  perfect  in  love,  are  not  such 
that  they  can  be  presented  with  motives  drawn  on/y  from  gratitude  and 
love.  These  indeed,  must  ever  be  the  chief  and  prominent  motive  to  obe- 
dience, (Rom.  xii.  1,)  and  so  long  as  they  prove  sufficient,  the  others  will 
not  appear ;  but  it  is  well  for  us  that  behind  these,  there  should  be  other 
sterner  and  severer  summonses  to  duty,  ready  to  come  forward  and  make 
themselves  felt,  when  our  evil  and  our  corruption  causes  them  to  be 
needed.  Well  for  us,  too,  is  it,  that  while  the  Lord  is  pleased  gracious- 
ly to  accept  our  work  and  to  reward  it,  we  should  ever  be  reminded  that 
it  is  an  act  of  his  free  grace,  of  his  unmerited  mercy,  by  which  our  re- 
lation to  him  has  been  put  upon  this  footing.  For  there  is  also  another 
footing  (that  of  the  parable)  upon  which  it  might  have  been  put, — yea, 
upon  which,  though  he  does  not,  yet  we  must  evermore  put  it,  so  far  at 

*  At  the  same  time,  our  translation  makes  it  wear  even  a  severer  aspect  tlian  is 
need,  while  it  has  rendered  £  yci  x'''P"'  *■•  '"•  ^-  :  "  Doth  he  thank  that  servant  ?"  thus 
se'eming  to  cut  off  any  recognition  at  all  of  the  servant's  work.  It  would  be  better, 
"  Doth  he  count  himself  especially  beholden  to  that  servant  1"  as  Weisse  gives  it,  Weiss 
er  dem  Knecht  besondern  Dank  ?  So  Heb.  xii.  28,  c'x'^t'cv  x'tp'",  which  should  be 
translated,  "  Let  us  have  the  thankfulness."     See  Tittman's  Si/non'i;7ns,  s.  v.  dxpctoi. 

t  Guerricus  (Bernardi  Oper.,  v.  2,  p.  1028,  ed.  Bened.,)  :  Neque  enim  timer  iste 
quern  amor  castum  facit,  gaudium  toUit,  sed  custodit ;  non  destruit,  sed  instruit ;  non 
inamaricat,  sed  condit ;  ut  tant6  sit  durabilius,  quanto  modestius,  tanto  verius,  quanta 
eeverius,  tant6  dulcius,  quant6  sanctius. 


UNPROFITABLE  SERVANTS.  381 

least  as  iS  needful  for  the  subduing  every  motion  of  pride  and  vain-glory 
— every  temptation  to  bring  in  God  as  our  debtor  because  of  our  work, — 
which,  inconceivable  as  it  must  appear  when  we  calmly  contemplate 
the  matter,  is  yet  what  men  are  evermore  on  the  point  of  doing.* 

A  more  real  difficulty  in  the  parable,  as  it  appears  to  me,  is  this, 
that  of  the  first  part  of  it  (ver.  7,  8)  the  purpose  seems,  to  commend  pa- 
tience in  the  Lord's  work, — that  we  do  not  desire  to  be  dismissed  before 
the  time  from  our  labours,  or  snatch  too  early  at  the  reward  ;  but  rather 
take  example  from  the  hind,  who  only  looks  to  rest  and  refresh  himself, 
when  his  master  has  no  further  need  of  his  service  :  that,  in  the  words 
of  the  son  of  Sirach  (xi.  20)  we  learn  to  wax  old  in  our  work,  and  so 
lono-  as  we  are  here,  see  in  one  task  but  a  stepping-stone  to  another. 
Such  appears  the  lesson  of  the  first  part  of  the  parable, — that  we  do  not, 
after  we  have  made  some  exertion,  smaller  or  greater,  account  that  we 
have  a  claim  to  be  exempted  henceforth  from  strenuous  toil  ;  but  on  the 
contrary,  ever,  as  we  have  surmounted  one  hill  of  labour,  perceive  a 
new  one  rising  above  it,  and  gird  ourselves  for  the  surmounting  of  that 
also.  But  in  the  second  part  (ver.  9,  10)  it  is  no  longer  this  patient  con- 
tinuance in  well-doing,  but  humility,  that  is  enjoined,  the  confession  that 
we  are  not  doing  God  a  favour  in  serving  him,  but  that  all  we  can  do  is 
of  merest  duty, — that  our  service  at  best  is  poor  and  of  little  value.  I 
suppose,  however,  the  solution  is,  that  impatience  under  deferred  reward, 
with  the  desire  to  be  released  from  labour,  springs  from  over-estimation 
of  our  work  ;  while  he  who  feels  that  all  which  he  has  yet  done  is  little, 
that  it  is  all  poor  and  mean,  as  he  will  not  count  that  it  gives  him  a 
claim  henceforward  to  be  exempted  from  labour,  but  will  rather  desire 
some  new  field  of  labour  where  he  may  approve  himself  a  better  servant 
than  he  has  yet  done,  so  neither  will  he  count  that  it  gives  him  a  right 
to  consider  God  as  his  debtor.  The  two  wrong  states  of  mind,  spring- 
ing from  the  same  evil  root,  are  to  be  met  by  the  same  remedy,  by 
the  learning  to  know  what  our  actual  relation  to  God  is, — that  it  is  one 
of  servants  to  a  master,  and  being  such,  it  precludes  us  alike  from  all 
right  of  claiming  release  when  we  please,  and  so  also  from  all  right  to 
extol  or  exalt  ourselves  for  the  doing  of  that,  which  by  the  very  laws 
of  our  condition  we  are  bound  to, — which  not  to  do  were  great  guilt,  but 
which  to  do  is  no  merit. 

*  Ambrose  {Exp.  in  Luc,  1.  8,c.  32):  Agnosce  esse  te  servum  plurimis  obsequiis 
defceneratum.  Non  te  piaeferas,  quia  filius  Dei  diceris  :  agnoscenda  gratia,  sed  non  ig- 
noranda  natura.  Neque  te  jactes  si  bene  servisti,  quod  facere  debuisti.  Obsequitur  sol, 
obtemperat  luna,  serviunt  angeli.  .  .  .  Et  nos  ergo  non  h  nobis  iaudem  exigamus,  nee 
prcEripiamus  judicium  Dei  etpraeveniamus  sententiam  judicis:  sed  suo  tempori,  suo  ju- 
dici  reservemus. 


382  THE  UNJUST  JUDGE. 

With  regard  to  the  actual  words  of  the  parable,  there  is  not  much  to 
remark.  All  are  aware  that  the  waiting  at  table  with  the  dress  suc- 
cinct was  a  mark  of  servitude,*  which  to  keep  in  mind  makes  more  won- 
flerful  the  condescension  of  the  Son  of  God  in  his  saying,  Luke  xii.  37, 
and  in  his  doing,  John  xiii.  4.  With  regard  to  the  confession  which  he 
puts  into  the  mouthsof  his  disciples,^  "  When  ye  shall  have  done  all  those 
things  which  are  commanded  you,  say, If.  We  are  nnprofitable  servants  ;" 
we  may  truly  observe,  as  many  have  observed  before,  if  this  they  are  to 
say  when  they  have  done  all,  how  much  more,  and  with  how  far  deeper 
self-abasement  and  shame,  when  their  consciences  bear  them  witness,  as 
his  conscience  must  bear  witness  to  every  man,  that  so  far  from  having 
done  all  that  was  commanded,  they  have  in  innumerable  things  griev- 
ously failed  and  come  short  of  their  duty,  of  what  they  might  and  ought 
to  have  done.§ 


PARABLE  XXVIII. 


THE    UNJUST    JUDGE. 

Luke  xviii.  1-8. 

This  parable  is  addressed  to  the  disciples,  and  stands,  as  Theophylact 
and  others  have  noted,  in  closest  relation  with  what  has  gone  immediate- 
ly before,  with  the  description  of  the  sufferings  and  distress  of  the  last 
times,  when  even  the  disciples  "  shall  desire  to  see  one  of  the  days  of 
the  Son  of  man,  and  shall  not  see  it."    (xvii.  22.)     Then  will  be,,ac- 

*  Venema  quotes  from  Philo  (De  Vita  Contempl.)  a  passage,  concerning  the  Egyp- 
tian Therapeutae,  which  gives  remarkable  evidence  of  this:  'A^woroi  6i  nal  KaOcjjivoi  toSj 
^iTCOvioKOVs  daiaotv  iirrtpcTrjcrui'TCi,  it'CKa  tov  ftttSlv  ciS(o\ov  e-nt(p£pta9at  Sov}iUTCpiTnii  o';^ri^aroj  cif 
TOijTO  rd  cvjtT^6aiov. 

f  Augustine ;  Contra  pestem  vanse  glorise  diligentissimfe  militans. 

\  Bengel :  Miser  est  quern  Dominus  servum  inutilem  appellat  (Matt.  xxv.  30),  bea^ 
tusqui  se  ipse. 

§  Cajetan  :  Quod  igitur  dicitur,  Quum  feceritis  omnia,  iion  ideo  dicitur,  t|uod  fac- 
turi  assent  omnia  :  sed  quod  si  etiam  faciunt  omnia,  sed  quod  quum  merita  habuerint 
facientium  omnia  prcecepta,  recognoscant  se  servos  inutiles ;  ut  Ji  fortiori  se  recogno- 
scant  minus  quam  inutiles,hoc  est  debitores  et  reos  multorum,quae  debebant  seu  debent 
facere. — Our  Church  in  her  14th  Article  has  used  this  parable  against  the  Romish  doc- 
trine of  works  of  supererogation.     Of.  Gerhard's  Loc.  Theoll. ,\oc.  18,  c.  8,  §91. 


THE  UNJUST  JUDGE. 


383 


cording  to  [the  deeply  significant  image  in  use  among  the  Jews,  and 
sanctioned  by  our  Lord,  the  birth-pangs  of  the  new  creation,*  and  the 
distresses  of  that  time  are  the  motive  here  set  forth  for  prayer, — distress. 
es  which  shall  always  be  felt,  but  then  at  the  last  felt  more  intensely 
than  ever.  "  He  spake  a  parable  unto  them,  that  men  ought  always  to 
pray,''  that  men  must  needs  pray  always,  If  they  would  escape  the  things 
coming  on  the  earth — that  such  was  the  only  condition  of  their  escaping. 
It  is  not  so  much  the  duty  or  suitableness,  as  the  absolute  necessity,  of 
instant  persevering  prayer  that  is  here  declared. j-  Nor  is  this  all  that 
the  parable  teaches,  but  it  gives  us  further  some  very  deep  insight  into 
the  nature  and  essence  of  prayer. 

In  this  precept,  to  pray  always,X  (with  which  we  may  compare 
Ephes.  vi.  18 ;  1  Thess.  v.  17,)  there  is  nothing  of  exaggeration,  no- 
thing commanded  which  may  not  be  fulfilled,  when  we  understand  of 
prayer  as  the  continual  desire  of  the  soul  after  God ;  having  indeed  its 
times  of  intensity,  seasons  of  an  intenser  concentration  of  the  spiritual 
life,  but  not  being  confined  to  those  times ;  since  the  whole  life  of  the 
faithful  should  be,  in  Origen's  beautiful  words,  one  great  connected 
prayer,§ — or,  as  St.  Basil  expresses  it,  prayer  should  be  the  salt  which 
is  to  salt  every  thing  besides.     "  That  soul,"  says  Donne,  "  that  is  ac- 

*  'ApY';  oitJiVw)/,  Matt.  xxiv.  8.  Compare  John  xvi.  21,  and  Rom.  viii.  22,  izaaa  fi 
KTiaig    cvv  0)  S  I  V  e  I. 

t  Compare  two  remarkable  sermons  by  Chrysostom,  (De  Precatione,)  which  turn  a 
good  deal  on  this  parable,  and  contain  many  remarkable  things  on  the  extreme  need- 
fulness of  prayer ;  he  calls  it  the  medicine  expelling  spiritual  sicknesses — the  foundation 
of  the  spiritual  building — that  to  the  soul  which  the  nerves  are  to  the  body.  He  likens 
the  man  without  prayer  to  the  fish  out  of  water  and  gasping  for  life — to  a  city  without 
walls,  and  exposed  to  all  assaults  ;  but  from  him  that  is  armed  with  prayer  the  tempter 
starts  back,  as  midnight  robbers  start  back  when  they  see  a  sword  suspended  over  a 
soldier's  bed. — Some  have  questioned  whether  these  sermons  are  Chrysostom's,  and  the 
Benedictine  editors  (v.  2,  p.  778)  speak  doubtfully,  the  main  argument  against  them 
being,  that  Sennacherib  is  twice  spoken  of  in  them  as  king  of  the  Persians,  an  error  it 
is  thought  which  Chrysostom  could  scarcely  have  committed.  But  if  it  is  to  be  consid- 
ered an  error,  it  is  quite  or  nearly  as  difficult  to  imagine  any  one  else,  who  could  write 
these  sermons  falling  into  it.  But  it  should  not  be  called  a  mistake  ;  the  names  of  the 
three  great  Eastern  monarchies  were  of  old  continually  confounded,  and  this  where  it  is. 
impossible  that  ignorance  could  have  been  the  cause.  Thus  Darius  is  called,  (Ezra  vi.. 
22,)  king  of  Assyria,  and  Artaxerxes,  (Neh.  xiii.  6,)  king  of  Babylon  ;  the  explanation: 
being,  that  the  three  first  empires,  as  we  call  them,  were  considered  not  as  different,  but( 
as  one  and  the  same  empire,  continued  under  different  dynasties.  D'Herbelot  {Bihl'. 
Orient.,  s.  v.  Nouh)  mentions  something  of  the  sort  as  being  the  view  of  the  modern' 
East :  II  faut  remarquer  ici,  que  les  Orientaux  comprennent  dans  les  dynasties  des  an— 
ciens  Rois  de  Perse,  les  Assyriens,  les  Babyloniens,  et  les  Medes. 

t  Tirinus  sets  forth  well  this  "  always :"  Non  obstante  taedio,  metu,  tentatione. 


384  THE  UNJUST  JUDGE. 

customed  to  direct  herself  to  God  upon  every  occasion,  that  as  a  flower 
at  sun-rising,  conceives  a  sense  of  God  in  every  beam  of  his,  and  spreads 
and  dilates  itself  towards  him,  in  a  thankfulness,  in  every  small  blessing 
that  he  sheds  upon  her,  .  .  .  that  soul  who,  whatsoever  string  be  stricken 
in  her,  base  or  treble,  her  high  or  her  low  estate,  is  ever  turned  towards 
God,  that  soul  prays  sometimes  when  it  does  not  know  that  it  prays."* 
Many  and  most  worthy  to  be  repeated  are  Augustine's  sayings  on  this 
matter,  drawn  as  they  are  from  the  depths  of  his  own  Christian  life. 
Thus,  in  one  place,  "  It  was  not  for  nothing  that  the  apostle  said,  '  Pray 
without  ceasing.'  Can  we,  indeed,  without  ceasing  bend  the  knee,  bow 
the  body,  or  lift  up  the  hands,  that  he  should  say,  '  Pray  without  ceas- 
ing V  Thei'e  is  another  interior  prayer  without  intermission,  and  that 
is  the  longing  of  thy  heart.  Whatever  else  thou  mayest  be  doing,  if 
thou  longest  after  that  Sabbath  of  God,  thou  dost  not  intermit  to  pray. 
If  thou  wishest  not  to  intermit  to  pray,  see  that  thou  do  not  intermit  to 
desire — thy  continual  desire  is  thy  continual  voice.  Thou  wilt  be  silent, 
if  thou  leave  off  to  love,  for  they  were  silent  of  whom  it  is  written,  '  Be- 
cause iniquity  shall  abound,  the  love  of  many  shall  wax  cold.'  The  cold- 
ness of  love  is  the  silence  of  the  heart — the  fervency  of  love  is  the  cry 
of  the  heart. "f  But  he  who  knew  how  easily  we  are  put  off  from  pray- 
er, and  under  vvhat  continual  temptations  to  grow  slack  in  it,  especially 
if  we  find  not  at  once  the  answer  we  expect,  warns  us  against  this  very 
thing,  bidding  us  to  pray  always,  and  '^  not  to  faint,"j^  not  to  grow  wea- 
ry, since  in  due  season  we  shall  reap  if  we  faint  not ;  and  in  proof  of  this 
he  brings  forward  the  parable  of  the  Unjust  Judge,  with  whom  tlie  fee- 
ble importunities  of  tlic  helpless  widow  did  yet  so  mightily  prevail,  that 
they  at  length  extorted  from  him  the  boon  which  at  first  he  was  deter- 
mined to  deny. 

None  but  the  Son  of  God  himself  might  have  ventured  to  use  this 
comparison.  It  had  been  overbold  on  the  lips  of  any  other.  For  as  in 
■the  parable  of  the  Friend  at  Midnight  we  were  startled  with  finding  God 

*  Sermon  XI.     On  the  Purificniion. 

i  Enarr.  in  Ps.  xxxvii.  10  :  Ipsum  desideiium  tuum,oratio  tua  cst.tt  si  continuum 
desiderium,  contlnua  oratio.  .  .  .  Frigns  caritntis,  siientium  cordis  est:  flagrantia  ca- 
ritatis,  clamor  cordis  est  :  and  elsewhere  :  Tota  vita  Christiani  honi  sanctum  deside- 
rium est  ;  and  again :  Lingua  tua  ad  horam  laudat,  vita  tua  semper  laudet.  Cf.  Ep. 
330,  c.  8. 

t  'EKKaKcTn — a  word  of  not  unfrequent  use  with  St.  Paul,  hut  elsewhere  in  the  New 
Testament  only  here.  Augustine  (Enarr.  in  Ps.  lxv.20,)  warns  against  the  danger  of 
Ibis  "fainting  :"  Multi  languescunt  in  oratione,el  in  novitate  suod  conversionis  ferven- 
•ter  Grant,  postea  languid^,  postea  frigid6,  postea  negligenter ;  quasi  securi  fiunt.  Vigi- 
lat  hostis;  dormis  tu.  .  .  .  Ergo  non  deficiamus  in  oratione  :  ille  quod  concessurus  est, 
•elsi  differt,  non  aufert. 


THE  UNJUST  JUDGE.  385 

compared  to  a  churlish  neighbour,  so  here  with  finding  him  likened  to 
an  imrighieous  judge.  Yet  we  must  not  seek  therefore  to  extenuate — as 
some  have  been  at  great  pains  to  do,  and  by  many  forced  constructions 
— his  unrighteousness;*  but  on  the  contrary,  the  greater  we  conceive 
that  to  have  been,  the  more  does  the  consoling  and  encouraging  truth 
which  the  Lord  would  enforce  come  out,  the  more  strong  the  argument 
for  persevering  prayer  becomes.  .  If  a  bad  man  will  yield  to  the  mere 
force  of  the  importunity  which  he  hates,  how  much  more  certainly  will 
a  righteous  God  be  prevailed  on  by  the  faithful  prayer  which  he  loves. f 
The  fact  that  the  judge  is  an  unrighteous  one,  is  not  an  accident  cleav- 
ing to  the  earthly  form  under  which  the  heavenly  truth  is  set  forth,  and 
which  would  have  been  got  rid  of,  if  it  conveniently  could,  but  is  rather 
a  circumstance  deliberately  and  voluntarily  chosen  for  the  mightier  set- 
ting forth  of  that  truth.  In  two  strokes  is  described  the  wickedness  of 
the  earthly  judge :  he  "feared  not  God,  neither  regarded  man.''''  "He 
feared  not  God  :"  all  that  God's  law  had  said  concerning  the  judge's 
charge  and  the  unrighteous  judge's  guilt,  he  counted  light  of;  (Exod. 
xxiii.  6-9;  Lev.  xix.  15;  Deut.  i.  16,  "17;  2  Chron.  xix.  6,  7;)  nor 
merely  was  there  wanting  in  him  that  higher  motive,  the  fear  of  God  ; 
but  its  poor  and  miserable  substitute,  the  respect  for  the  opinion  of  the 
world,  was  equally  inoperative ;  he  had  reached  that  point  of  reckless 
wickedness,  that  he  was  alike  indifferent  to  either.  And  what  was  worse 
than  all,  he  dared  to  avow  this  contempt  to  himself.  The  case,  there- 
fore, of  any  suppliant  was  the  more  hopeless,  especially  of  one  weak  and 
poor — weak,  so  that  she  could  not  compel  him  to  do  her  justice — and 
poor,  so  that  she  could  not  supply  him  with  any  motive,  why  for  her  sake 
he  should  brave,  it  might  be,  the  resentment  of  formidable  adversaries. 
Such,  no  doubt,  is  the  widow  of  the  parable,  one  "that  is  a  widow  in- 
deed and  desolate."  Many  writers  have  noticed  the  exceeding  desola- 
tion of  the  state  of  widowhood  in  the  East,  and  the  obviousness  of  the 
widow,  as  one  having  none  to  help  her,  to  all  manner  of  oppressions  and 


*  For  a  monstrous  specimen  of  the  explanations,  of  which  the  aim  is  to  get  rid  of 
the  aiiKia  of  the  judge,  see  Theophylact  (in  loc.) — it  is  not,  however,  approved  by  him. 
It  is  also  adduced  by  Pseudo-Athanasius  {De  Farah.  Script.,  qu.  30),  and  mentioned  in 
SuicER,  TAes  ,  s.  V.  «-f)(T»;j.  It  stands  parallel  with  the  extraordinary  explanation  of 
Nathan's  parable  of  the  Ewe  Lamb,  (2  Sam.  xii.  1,)  given  by  Ambrose.  (Apolog. 
Froph.  David. ,c.  5.) 

t  Augustine  {Serm.  115,  c.  1):  Si  ergo  exaudivit  qui  oderat  quod  rogabatur,  quo- 
modo  exaudit  qui  ut  rogemns,  hortatur?  and  Tertullian,  on  the  holy  violence  of  prayer: 
Haec  vis  Deo  est  grata.     Clemens  too  (Potter's  ed.,  p.  947) :  Xui'pci  b  Gioj  to.  roiavra 

TiTTU^eDOg. 


386  THE  UNJUST  JUDGE. 

wrongs  J*  of  this,  the  numerous  warnings  against  such  oppression  which 
Scripture  contains,  are  sufficient  evidence.  (Exod.  xxii.  22  ;  Deut.  xxiv. 
17;  xxvii.  19;  Mai.  iii.  5,  and  many  more.) 

How  fitly  then  does  this  widow  represent  the  Church  f  under  perse- 
cution, not  necessarily  under  any  particular  persecution,  but  under  that 
which  is  always  going  forward,  the  oppression  from  the  adverse  element 
in  which  she  draws  her  breath.  Nor  need  it  be  only  the  Church  at 
large  which  we  see  represented  in  her,  but  also  any  single  soul  in  con- 
flict  with  the  powers  of  darkness  and  the  world.  The  adversary  then, 
("  your  adversary,  the  Devil,"  1  Pet.  v.  8,)  is  the  prince  of  the  darkness 
of  this  world,  the  head  of  all  the  powers  which  are  arrayed  against  the 
manifestation  of  the  kingdom  of  God  either  in  a  single  soul,  or  in  the 
whole  world  ;  keeping  down  and,  as  far  as  it  is  allowed  him,  oppressing 
it ;  the  spiritual  Herod  that  is  ever  seeking  to  destroy  the  heavenly 
child.  But  the  elect,  they  who,  having  the  first  fruits  of  the  Spirit, 
groan  within  themselves,  waiting  their  perfect  redemption,  are  here  re- 
presented as  in  conflict  with  those  adverse  powers,  as  suffering  oppres- 
sion  from  them  ;  till  under  the  sense  of  that  oppression,  and  of  their  help- 
lessness to  effect  their  own  deliverance,  a  cry  is  wrung  out  from  them, 
a  cry  generally  for  aid,  but  chiefly  for  that  aid  which  will  be  final  and 
complete,  the  revelation  of  the  Son  of  man  in  his  glory, — even  the  cry 
of  the  Prophet,  "  Oh  !  that  thou  wouldest  rend  the  heavens,  that  thou 
wouldest  come  down,"  (Isai.  liv.  1,)  when  the  wicked  shall  fall  and  not 
rise  again,  when  the  Church  shall  be  at  rest,  being  for  ever  set  free 
from  all  the  enemies  that  are  round  about  her.  It  would  be  a  very  im- 
perfect and  slight  view  of  those  cries  for  deliverance,  which  occur  so 
often  in  the  Psalms  and  in  the  Prophets,  to  refer  them  to  any  particular 
and  transient  outward  afflictions  or  persecutions  which  the  Church  or 
any  of  its  members  are  enduring.  The  world  is  always,  whether  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  whether  by  flattery  or  by  hostile  violence, 
oppressing  the  Church  ;  and  Satan  evermore  seeking  to  hinder  the  man- 
ifestation  of  the  life  of  God  in  every  one  of  her  members  :  and  prayer  is 

*  For  instance,  Ward  in  his  Illustrations  of  Scripture  from  the  Manners  and  Cus- 
toms of  the  Hindoos.     Tiius,  too,  Terence  : 

Non,  ita  me  Dii  anient,  auderet  facere  haec  viduae  mulieri. 
Quae  in  me  fecit. 

t  Augustine  (Enarr.  in  Ps.  cxxxi.  15) :  Omnis  anima  quae  intelligit  se  desertam 
omni  auxilio  nisi  solius  Dei,  vidua  est ;  .  .  .  omnis  Ecclesia  una  vidua  est,  deserta  in 
hoc  seculo  ;  si  aentit  illud,  si  novit  viduitatem  suam  :  tunc  enim  auxilium  preesto  est 
illi ;  and  Quast.  Evang.,  1.  2.  qu.  45  :  Ipsa  ver6  vidua  potest  habere  similitudinem 
Ecclesiae,  quae  desolata  videtur  donee  veniat  Dominus,  qui  tamen  in  secreto  etiam  nunc 
curam  ejus  gerit.     Cf.  Isai.  liv.  1-8. 


THE  UNJUST  JUDGE.  287 

the  cry  de  profundis  which  the  elect  utter,  the  calling  in  of  a  mightier 
to  aid,  when  they  feel  the  danger  to  be  urgent  lest  the  enemy  should 
prevail  against  them.  And  the  words  in  which  their  need  finds  utter- 
ance,  "  Avenge  me  of  mine  adversary,''  wonderfully  express  the  relation 
in  which  we  stand  to  the  evil  of  which  we  are  conscious  as  mightily 
working  within  us ; — that  it  is  not  our  very  self,  but  an  alien  power, 
holding  us  in  bondage, — not  the  very  "  I,"  as  St.  Paul  (Rom.  vii.)  is  so 
careful  to  assert,  for  then  redemption  would  be  impossible,  but  sin  which, 
having  introduced  itself,  is  now  seeking  to  keep  us  in  bondage.  It  is 
one  great  work  of  the  Spirit  of  God  to  make  us  feel  this  distinctness  be- 
tween us  and  the  evil  which  is  in  us.  The  new  creation  is  in  this  like 
the  old,  that  it  is  a  separating  of  the  light  from  the  darkness  in  the  soul 
of  man, — not  indeed,  as  yet,  an  entire  expelling  of  that  darkness,  but  a 
disengaging  of  the  light  from  it,  so  that  the  light  being  brought  into  di- 
rect relation  with  him  who  is  the  fountain  of  all  light,  may  act  as  an  op- 
posing power  to  that  darkness.  The  good  and  the  evil  in  him  are  no 
longer  in  a  state  of  blind  contradiction,  but  of  distinct  self-conscious  op- 
position. The  renewed  man  knows  that  he  has  an  adversary,  but  for 
his  comfort,  he  knows  also  that  this  adversary  is  not  his  very  self,  but 
another,  so  that  if  he  resist  him,  he  will  flee  from  him ;  he  knows  that 
the  power  which  that  other  exercises  over  him  is  an  usurpation,  and 
that  it  will  be  a  righteous  thing  for  God  to  cast  out  him  who  obtained 
that  power  by  fraud  and  by  violence  ;  and  knowing  this,  he  is  able  to 
cry,  with  the  widow  in  the  parable,  "  Avenge  me  of  mine  adversary,"  or 
rather,  since  men  go  not  to  a  judge  for  vengeance,  but  for  justice, — "  Do 
me  right  on,  deliver  me  from  the  oppression  of,  mine  adversary."*  And 
this  is  the  same  petition  that  we  make  daily,  when  we  say  "  Deliver  us 
from  evil,"  or  rather,  "  from  the  Evil  One," — from  him  who  is  the 
source  and  centre  of  all  evil.f 

For  a  time  the  judge  was  deaf  to  the  widow's  petition  ;  "  He  would 
not  for  a  while."  When  it  was  said  above  that  the  strength  of  the  pa- 
rable lay  in  the  unlikeness  between  the  righteous  Judge  of  the  world, 
and  this  ungodly  earthly  judge,  it  was  not  meant  to  be  denied, — nay, 
this  too  is  part  of  the  teaching  here, — that  God  often  seems  to  man  to  be 
acting  as  this  unjust  judge,  to  be  turning  a  deaf  ear  to  the  prayer  of  his 
people.     For  even  the  elect  are  impatient  under  suffering  and  affliction  ; 

*  Schleusner,  s.  v.  IkSiksoi  :  Assere  me  juredicundo  ab  injuria  adversarii  mei.  The 
Vulgate  :  Vindica  me  de  adversario  meo. 

t  The  analogy  of  other  passages.  Matt.  xiii.  19,  39  ;  Eph.  vi.  16  ;  2  Thess.  iii.  3, 
would  lead  us  to  translate  in  the  Lord's  prayer,  Trovrjpov  not  as  a  neuter,  but  masculine  ; 
and  all  the  quotations  in  Suicer's  Thes.,  s.  v.,  show  that  it  was  so  interpreted  in  the 
Greek  Church. 


3S8  THE  UNJUST  JUDGE. 

they  expect  a  speedier  deliverance  tiian  God  is  always  willing  to  vouch- 
safe them  ;  they  think  they  have  a  claim  to  be  heard  and  delivered  more 
promptly  than  God  thinks  good.*  They  cry,  and  when  they  receive  no 
speedy  answer,  but  are  left,  as  it  appears  to  them,  long  in  the  hands  of 
their  enemies,  or  in  the  furnace  of  affliction,  they  are  tempted  to  hard 
thoughts  of  God,  as  though  he  took  part  with,  or  at  least  was  contented 
to  endure,  the  proud  oppressors,  while  the  cry  of  his  afflicted  people  was 
as  nothing  in  his  ears ;  they  are  tempted  to  say  with  the  storm-tost  dis- 
ciples, "Carest  thou  not  that  we  perish  ?"  Now  the  parable  is  in  fact 
intended,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  to  meet  this  very  difficulty  and 
temptation,  to  which  the  faithful,  suffering  long  under  sore  earthly 
trials,  are  exposed. — We  have  in  ver.  4,5,  recorded,  not  of  course  what 
the  judge  spoke  aloud,  scarcely  what  he  spoke  in  his  own  hearing,  but 
the  voice  of  his  heart,  as  that  heart  spake  in  the  hearing  of  God  :-j-  "  He 
said  within  himself,  Though  1  fear  not  God,  nor  regard  man,  yet  be- 
cause this  widoiv  trouhlelh  me,  I  will  avenge  her,  lest  hy  her  continual 
coning  she  weary  \  me."  He  was  not  impelled  in  the  matter  by  any 
other  motive  than  a  selfish  regard  for  his  own  ease  and  quiet  j  but  lest 
these  should  be  continually  disturbed  and  broken  in  upon,  he  does  her 
right,  that  so  he  may  be  rid  of  her, — that  she  may  not  plague  nor  vex 
him  any  more,  as  it  was  the  same  molive,  though  of  course  in  a  much 
milder  form,  which  moved  the  disciples  to  ask  for  the  woman  of  Canaan, 
that  her  prayer  might  be  granted  :  "  Send  her  away,  for  she  crieth  after 


*  Augustine,  Enarr.  2»  in  Ps.  xxxiv.  17. 

t  Bernard  :  Audit  Deus  in  corde  cogitantis,  quod  nee  ipse  audit  qui  cogitat. 

t  He  uses  a  very  strong  expression  here,  ii;raj7r(d^i),  from  vttmttioi',  the  part  of  the 
face  under  the  eyes.  Wahl :  incoTni^oi,  sugillo,  ut  sub  oculis  vivices  et  maculae  luridae 
existant.  St.  Paul  uses  the  same  word  (1  Cor.  ix.  27)  to  describe  the  hard  discipline 
to  which  he  submitted  his  body.  Both  there  and  here  there  is  another  reading,  in-oTrid^o) 
or  v-Tovii^t,),  instead  of  vvoi-ma^o),  which  is  not  without  some  authorities  in  its  favour. 
It  is  easy,  however,  to  see  how,  in  the  present  instance,  that  reading  arose,  the  tran- 
scribers liiiniving  this  too  strong  an  expression  for  anything  which  the  widow  could 
effect ;  for  how  could  she  punish  him  till  his  face  became  black  and  blue?  But  the 
use  of  so  strong  a  term  is  very  characteiistic  of  the  man  described.  Bengel  ;  Hyper- 
bole judicis  iiijusti  et  impatientis  personae  conveniens — it  is  exactly  this  exagD;eralion 
of  language  which  selfishness  uses  in  the  things  which  threaten  ils  own  case  and  enjoy- 
ment;  and  we  have  numerous  examples  of  a  like  usage  of  words ;  thus  tTKv'^Xtiv,  to 
vex  or  annoy,  means  properly  to  flay  ;  and  the  Spanish  ahorcar,  used  much  in  the 
same  sense,  means  rightly,  to  put  to  death  by  hanging  ;  and  our  English  to  plague,  is 
properly,  to  lash  ;  and  these  examples  might  easily  be  multiplied.  Beza's  translation, 
obtundat,  is  happy, — that  word  being  used  exactly  in  this  sense  :  thus  Terence,  Ne  me 
obtundas  ha,c  de  re  sa;pius.  The  assertion  made  by  Chrysostom,  De  Laz.,  Cone.  3,  c- 
5,)  that  it  was  pity  which  at  length  moved  the  judge,  is  totally  without  foundation, 
and  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  the  parable. 


THE -UNJUST  JUDGE.  389 

US."*     (Matt.  XV.  23.)     Indeed  this  parable  and  that  miracle  form  alto- 
gether an  interesting  parallel-     (Compare  Sirac.  xxxv.  17.) 

Between  the  parable  and  its  application, — that  is,  between  vor,  5 
and  6, — it  is  likely  that  the  Lord  paused  for  a  while,  and  then  again  re- 
sumed his  discourse  :  "  Hear  what  the  unjust  judge  sailh  ;  and  nhall  not 
God  avenge  his  own  elect .?"  In  the  first  clause  of  the  sentence  the  em- 
phasis should  be  laid  on  the  word  "  unjust ;"  in  the  other,  the  epithet  of 
goodness  which  should  complete  the  antithesis  is  omitted,  as  being  neces- 
sarily included  in  the  name,  God; — if  the  unjust  judge  acts  thusj  shall 
not  the  just  God  avenge  his  own  elect  ?  And  the  antithesis  is  to  be  car- 
ried through  all  the  members  of  the  sentence  ;  the  righteous  God  is  not 
only  opposed  to  the  unrighteous  judge,  but  the  elect,  the  precious  before 
God,  to  the  widow,  the  despised  among  men  ;  their  prayers  to  her  clam- 
our ;  and  the  days  and  nights  during  which  those  prayers  are  made,  to 
the  comparatively  short  time  during  which  she  with  her  importunities 
beset  the  judge.  The  certainty  that  the  elect  will  be  heard  rests  not, 
however,  on  their  mighty  and  assiduous  f  crying  as  its  ultimate  ground, 
but  on  their  election  of  God,  which  is,  therefore,  here  brought  especially 
into  notice, ij:  and  they  called  by  this  name  of  God's  elect,  rather  than  by 
any  other  of  the  many  titles  that  might  at  first  sight  have  seemed  equally 
appropriate  : — ^just  as  in  Daniel  (xii.  1)  the  deliverance  of  God's  servants 
is  traced  up  to  the  same  cause ;  "  At  that  time,"  that  is,  at  the  time  of 
extremest  distress,  "  thy  people  shall  be  delivered,  every  one  that  shall  be 
found  written  in  the  book."     Shall  he  not  avenge  them,  asks,  the  Lord, 

*  The  endeavour  to  obtain  help  or  redress  by  long-continued  crying,  and  by  mere 
force  of  importunity, — to  extort  by  these  means  a  boon  or  a  right  which  is  expected 
from  no  other  motives,  is  quite  in  the  spirit  of  tlie  East.  Thus  it  is  mentioned  in 
Chardin's  Travels  in  Persia,  (I  have  not  the  book  at  hand  to  give  the  exact  refer- 
ence,) that  the  peasants  of  a  district,  when  their  crops  have  failed,  and  they  therefore 
desire  a  remission  of  the  contributions  imposed  on  their  villages,  or  when  they  would 
appeal  against  some  tyrannical  governor,  will  assemble  before  the  gates  of  theSchah's 
harem,  and  there  continue  howling  and  throwing  dust  in  the  air,  (Job  ii.  12 ;  Acta 
xxii.  23,)  and  not  be  silenced  or  driven  away,  till  he  has  sent  out  and  demanded  the 
cause,  and  thus  given  them  at  least  an  opportunity  of  stating  their  griefs ;  or  some- 
times they  would  beset  him  in  the  same  manner,  as  he  passed  through  the  streets  of 
the  city,  and  thus  seek  to  gain,  and  often  succeed  in  gaining,  their  point,  not  from  his 
love  of  justice,  but  from  his  desire  to  be  freed  from  annoyance.  See  Burder's  Orient, 
lllust.,  V.  2,  p.  382. 

t  'Hfftjjaf  Koi  vvKTOi  here  =  nivTOTt  of  ver.  1.  Our  English  "  cry"  is  but  a  weak 
translation  of  the  original  poSv.  Tertullian  translates  it  better  by  mugire  ;  it  is  a 
mighty  crying  (Gen.  iv.  10  ;  Jon.  iii.  8,  LXX. ;  Jam.  v.  4)  which  is  here  attributed  to 
the  elect. 

t  Bengel  (ore  Matt.  xxiv.  22)  :  Ubi  supra  robur  fidelium  ordinarium  excedit  vis 
tentationum,  electio  allegatur. 


390  THE  UNJUST  JUDGE. 

"  though  he  bear  long  with  them  ?''  or  since  that  phrase  is  mostly  used 
in  Scripture,  to  set  forth  the  relation  of  God  to  the  sins  of  men, — his  pa- 
tience in  giving  them  time  and  space  for  repentance, — it  would  avoid 
perplexity  if  here  another  phrase  were  used,  as  for  instance,  "though  he 
bear  them  long  in  hand  ?"  or  "  though  he  delay  with  them  long  ?"* 
that  is,  long,  as  men  count  length.  He  may  be  slack  in  avenging  his 
people  as  "  men  count  slackness,"  as  compared  with  their  impatience, 
and  with  their  desire  to  be  at  once  delivered  from  affliction  ;  but,  indeed, 
"  he  li'ill  avenge  them  speedily,^'  not  leaving  them  a  moment  longer  in 
the  fire  of  affliction  than  is  needful,  delivering  them  from  it  the  instant 
that  patience  has  had  its  perfect  work  ;  so  that  there  is,  and  there  is 
meant  to  be,  an  apparent  contradiction,  while  yet  there  is  no  real  one, 
between  ver.  7  and  that  which  follows.  The  relief  which  to  man's  im- 
patience seems  to  tarry  long,  indeed  arrives  speedily ;  it  could  not, 
according  to  the  far-seeing  and  loving  counsels  of  God,  have  arrived  a 


*  The  words  xal  jiaKpoOvudv  in  avTois  have  created  much  difficuhy.  Some  refer 
aiiTois  to  the  oppressors,  on  whom  the  vengeance  is  taken,  and  iiaKpoOvjioiv  is  then  used 
in  its  commonest  sense  ;  "  Shall  not  God  avenge  his  elect,  though  he  bear  long  with 
their  oppressors?"  yet  against  this  Wolf  says  truly,  Impiorum,  de  quibus  ullio  sit  su- 
menda,  non  meminit  Christus.  But  ^aKpoOvjxiw  need  not  be  necessarily,  differo  ultionem, 
but  merely  differo,  patienter  expecto  ;  see  Heb.  vi.  15  ;  Jam.  v.  7,  8  ;  Job  vii.  16  ;  and 
especially  Sirac.  xxxv.  18,  (in  the  Greek,  xxxii.  18.)  Grotius  seizes  happily  the  point 
from  which  the  two  meanings  diverge  ;  he  says  :  Est  in  hac  voce  dilationis  significatio, 
quae  ut  debitori  prodest,  ita  gravis  est  ei  qui  vim  patitur.  Suicer,  who  has  given  rightly 
the  meaning  of  the  Lord's  words  (quamvis  lentfe  ad  vindicandum  ipsos  procedat),  has 
(8.  V.  jiaKpoOvfiiw)  a  good  and  useful  commentary  on  all  the  latter  part  of  the  parable. 
The  proverb  may  be  brought  into  comparison :  Habet  Deus  suas  horas,  et  moras. — 
Since  the  above  was  written,  I  have  seen  an  essay  by  Hassler,  {Tubing.  Zeitschr.,  1832, 
Heft  3,  pp.  117-125,)  wherein  he  finds  fault  with  this  explanation,  which  he  denies  to 
lie  in  the  words,  and  makes  koX  fiaKpoOvjioJi/  tir'  airoTs  a  description  of  God's  patience 
with  his  suppliants,  as  contrasted  with  the  fretful  irritation  of  the  judge  under  tbe  soUci- 
tations  of  her  that  beset  him  ;  and  the  passage,  in  his  view,  might  thus  be  translated, 
"  Shall  not  God  avenge  his  own  elect,  when  also  he  is  patient  toward  them  ?"  shall  he 
not  avenge  them,  and  so  much  the  more  while  their  reiterated  prayers  do  not  vex  or 
weary  him,  as  that  widow's  prayers  vexed  and  wearied  the  judge — excite  no  impatience 
but  only  pity  in  his  heart.  Our  Lord  is  then  giving  an  additional  motive  why  they 
should  not  faint  in  prayer.  There  may  be  a  question,  whether  it  is  not  the  inten- 
tion of  the  Vulgate  to  give  this  meaning,  when  it  translates,  Et  patientiam  habebit 
in  illis  1  and  of  Luther:  Und  sollte  Geduld  darOber  haben  ?  but  dariiber  is  ambig- 
uous. At  all  events  this  interpretation  has  no  claim  to  be  a  new  light  thrown  upon 
the  passage,  as  the  writer  supposes.  Homberg,  (Parergn,  p.  146,  had  long  ago  pro- 
posed it,  and  Wolf  {Cura,  in  loc.)  is  inclined  to  fall  in  with  it,  who  sums  up  the 
meaning  thus  ;  Patientia  igitur  Dei  hie  refertur  ad  auditionem  precum  electorum, 
quod  oppositum  judicis  injusti  exemplum  probabile  redd  it,  qui  non  patienter  audiebat 
viduse  querelas. 


THE  UNJUST  JUDGE.  391 

moment  earlier.*  We  may  find  a  practical  illustration  of  these  words  in 
the  whole  of  our  Lord's  conduct  with  the  family  of  Bethany  (John  xi.)  in 
the  depths  into  which  he  suffered  them  to  be  brought,  before  he  arrived 
to  aid ;  just  as,  to  take  a  milder  example,  it  was  not  till  the  fourth 
watch,  in  other  words,  until  the  last,  that  he  came  to  aid  his  disciples 
labouring  in  vain  against  an  adverse  and  perilous  sea.  (Matt.  xiv.  24, 
25.) 

The  words  with  which  the  application  of  the  parable  concludes, 
"  Nevertheless  when  the  Son  of  man  cometh,  shall  he  find  faith  on  the 
earth  .?"  are  perplexing,  for  they  appear  at  first  sight  to  call  in  question 
the  success  of  his  whole  mediatorial  work.f  But  though  we  have  other 
grounds  for  believing  that  the  Church  will,  at  that  last  moment,  be  re- 
duced to  a  very  little  band  ;  yet  here  the  point  is  not  that  there  will  be 
then  few  faithful  or  none,  but  that  the  faith  even  of  the  faithful  will  be 
almost  failing  ; — the  distress  will  be  so  urgent,  the  darkness  so  thick, 
at  the  moment  when  at  last  the  Son  of  man  shall  come  forth  for  salva- 
tion and  deliverance,  that  even  the  hearts  of  his  elect  people  will  have 
begun  to  fail  them  for  fear.  The  lateness  of  the  help  Zechariah  (xiv. 
1-5)  describes,  under  the  images  of  the  old  theocracy, — Jerusalem  shall 
be  already  taken,  the  enemy  shall  be  within  its  walls,  spoiling  and  deso- 
lating, when  the  Lord  shall  come  forth,  his  feet  standing  on  the  Mount 
of  Olives,  to  fight  against  its  enemies.  All  help  will  seem  utterly  to 
have  failed,  so  that  the  Son  of  man  at  his  coming  will  hardly  find  faith, 
or  rather  that  faith,  the  faith  which  does  not  faint  in  prayer,  with  allusion 
to  ver.  1, — the  faith  which  hopes  against  hope,  and  believes  that  light  will 
break  forth  even  when  the  darkness  is  thickest,  and  believing  this  contin- 
ues to  pray,:{: — he  will  hardly  find  that  faith  upon  earth.  The  verse 
stands  parallel  to,  and  may  be  explained  by,  those  other  words  of  our 
Lord's  :  "  For  the  elect's  sake,"  lest  their  faith  also  should  fail,  and  so 


*  Unger  {De  Par.  Jes.  Nat.,  p.  136)  :  Opponuntur  sibi  jiaKpoQvjiuiv  atque  iv  Taxt^, 
illud  fortasse  ad  hominum  opinionem  (ut  sit,  "  si  vel  tardior  videatur,")  hoc  ad  sapi- 
ens Dei  consilium  referendum.  Augustine  (Enarr.  in  Ps.  xci.  6)  has  some  admirable 
remarks  on  the  impatience  of  men,  contrasted  with  the  seeming  tardiness  of  God. 

+  We  learn  from  Augustine  that  they  were  used  by  the  Donatists,  in  reply  to 
the  Church,  when  she  pleaded  against  them  her  numbers  and  her  universality,  (Om- 
nes  enim  haeretici  in  paucis  et  in  parte  sunt :  Enarr.  in  Ps.  xxxi.  2.)  The  Dona- 
tists answered,  (applying  to  their  own  day  this  prophecy  concerning  the  last  times,) 
that  the  Lord  himself  had  declared  this  fewness  of  the  faithful ;  how  he  should  hardly 
find  faith  on  the  earth. 

t  Theophylact  observes  here  on  faith,  as  the  one  condition  of  prayer,  iricru  vpoffev- 
^rii  fiaOpov  KoX  KpriwU  !i  TrioTis.  And  Augustlne :  Si  fides  deficit,  oratio  perit :  quis 
enim  orat  quod  non  credit  ? 


392  THE  PHARISEE  AND  THE  PUBLICAN. 

no  flesh  should   be   saved,  "  those  days  shall   be   shortened."*     (Matt, 
xxiv.  22.) 


PARABLE  XXIX. 


THE   PHARISEE   AND   THE    PUBLICAN. 

Luke  xviii.  9-14. 

The  last  parable  was  to  teach  us  that  prayer  must  be  earnest  and  per- 
severing ;  this  that  it  must  also  be  humble. f  Some  have  supposed,  as, 
for  example,  Vitringa,^  that  here  too  we  have  set  forth  before  us  the 
rejection  of  the  Jew  and  the  acceptance  of  the  Gentile ;  the  Pharisee 
being  the  representative  of  that  whole  nation,  which  would  have  taken 


*  Vitringa's  explanation  of  the  parable  (Erkltlr.  d.  Parab.,  p.  960,  seq.)  is  curious- 
I  should  think  it  his  own,  and  likely  to  remain  so.  The  unjust  judge  represents  the 
Roman  emperors,  the  importunate  widow  the  early  Church,  which  sought  evermore 
to  plead  its  cause  before  them,  and  by  their  interference  to  be  delivered  from  its  op- 
pressors. The  emperors,  after  a  long  while,  undertook  its  defence,  ceasing  themselves 
to  persecute,  and  not  suffering  others  any  more  to  persecute  it. — Yet  stranger  than 
this  is  the  view  of  Irenaeus,  {Cov.  Hcer  ,  1.  5,  c.  25,)  and  of  Hijipolytas,  or  whoever 
else  is  the  author  of  the  treatise  Be  Antichristo,  c.  37.  The  widow  is  the  earthly 
Jerusalem,  Israel  after  the  flesh,  which,  forgetful  of  God,  turns  to  the  unjust  judge, 
that  is,  to  Antichrist,  for  he  is  the  despiser  alike  of  God  and  men,  (ver.  2,)  for  aid 
against  him  whom  she  falsely  believes  her  adversary,  namely,  Christ.  They  see  an 
allusion  to  the  last  days  and  to  the  mighty  part  which,  as  they  assume,  the  unbeliev- 
ing Jews  will  have  in  the  setting  up  of  Antichrist's  kingdom.  (John  v.  43 ;  Dan. 
viii.  12.) 

t  Augustine  finds  a  yet  closer  connexion  :  Quia  fides  non  est  superborum  sed 
humilium,  prsmissis  subjecit  parabolam  de  humilitate  contra  superbiam. 

\  Erklar.  d.  Parab.,  p.  974.  Augustine  too  (Enarr.  in  Ps.  Ixxiv.  iS)  thinks  this 
application  may  be  made,  though  it  is  not  with  him  the  primary  :  Hoc  latius  accipi- 
entes,  intelligamus  duos  populos,  Judaeorum  et  Gentium  :  Judteorum  populua  Phari- 
saeus  ille.  Gentium  populus  Publicanus  ille.  Judoeorum  populus  jactabat  merita  sua, 
Gentium  confitebatur  peccata  sua.  So  H.  de  Sto  Victore  {Annott.  in  Luc.)  :  Phar- 
isaeus,  Judaicum  populum  significat,  qui  ex  justificationis  legibus  extollit  merita  sua, 
et  superbiendo  recedit.  Humiliatus  publicanus,  Gentilem  significat :  qui  long6  a  Deo 
positus,  peccata  confitetur,  et  lamentando  propinquat  Deo,  et  exaltatur.  Schleier- 
macher  also  observes,  that  it  contradicts  the  idea  of  a  parable,  that  the  Pharisee  should 
here  mean  a  Pharisee,  or  the  Pharisees  generally;  but  this  objection  yields  to  the 
fact;  that  the  term  parable  is  of  very  wide  signification  throughout  the  New  Testament. 


THE  PHARISEE  AND  THE  PUBLICAN.  393 

him  as  its  most  favourable  specimen — the  publican,  of  the  Gentiles, 
with  whom  those  despised  collectors  of  customs  were  commonly  classed; 
the  one  glorying  in  his  merits,  proudly  extolling  himself  above  the  sin- 
ners of  the  Gentiles,  but  through  this  very  pride  and  self-righteousness 
failing  to  become  partaker  of  the  righteousness  of  God  ;  while  the  other, 
meekly  acknowledging  his  vileness,  and  repenting  of  his  sins,  is  justified 
freely  by  his  grace.  But  the  words  with  which  the  parable  is  intro- 
duced (ver.  9),  and  which  must  give  the  law  to  its  interpretation,  are 
opposed  to  this  view.  It  was  spoken  "  unto  certain  which  trusiedin  them- 
selves that  they  were  righteous,  and  despised  olhers  ;  the  aim  of  it  was  to 
cure  a  fault  which  the  Lord  had  noted  in  some  of  those  that  surrounded 
him.  He  had  seen  in  some  of  his  disciples,  displays  of  spiritual  pride. ' 
— of  self-exaltation,  accompanied,  as  they  always  will  be,  with  thejaon- 
tempt  of  others.  There  is  no  hint  given  in  the  context  to  lead  us  to 
suppose  that  the  relations  of  Jew  and  Gentile  are  now  before  him :  he  is 
dealing  rather  with  a  spiritual  mischief,  which  he  has  observed  showing 
itself  in  some  of  his  own  followers;  I  say,  in  some  of  his  own  followers, 
because  I  cannot  for  an  instant  conceive  that  by  the  example  of  a  Pharisee 
he  is  warning  and  rebuking  the  Pharisees.  It  would  have  been  to  no 
profit  to  have  held  up  to  these  the  spectacle  of  a  Pharisee  praying,  as 
this  one  prays  in  the  parable.  They  would  have  held  it  only  most  na- 
tural and  proper,  that  he  should  have  prayed  in  this  fashion.*  There 
would  have  been  for  them  no  conviction  of  sin,  but  only  for  a  disciple, 
for  one  who  had  advanced  much  further  in  spiritual  insight,  though  in 
danger  of  falling  back  into  pharisaic  sins.  Such  an  one  would  only 
need  his  sin  to  be  plainly  shown  to  him,  and  he  would  start  back  at  its 
deformity.  He  would  see  the  Pharisee  in  himself,  and  tremble  and 
repent. 

"  Two  men  went  up  into  the  temple  to  pray,''  we  are  to  suppose  at  one 
of  the  fixed  hours  of  devotion,  (Acts  iii.  1,)  "  the  one  a  Pharisee  and  the 
other  a  publican  ;"  a  Brahmin  and  a  Pariah,  as  one  might  say,  if  preach- 
ing from  this  Gospel  in  India — the  Pharisee,  a  specimen  of  that  class  of 
men,  who,  satisfying  themselves  with  a  certain  external  freedom  from 

*  Or  to  take  another  view  of  it,  wliich  is  Mr.  Greswell's:  "  Of  what  use  in  a 
moral  point  of  view  would  it  be  to  hold  up  to  the  Pharisee  the  true  picture  of  himself 
and  his  sect  ?  or  what  hope  could  there  be  of  correcting  his  characteristic  vices,  what- 
ever they  were,  by  laying  them  bare,  and  exposing  them  openly  and  nakedly  before 
himself?  Such  an  exposure  might  be  well  calculated  to  irritate  and  offend,  but  not 
to  reform  or  amend  them  ;  for  it  cannot  be  supposed  that  they  would  willingly  be 
parties  in  their  own  disgrace  or  patiently  acquiesce  in  their  own  condemnation."  See 
also  p.  248,  note,  some  important  remarks  on  the  question  how  far  th's  is  a  parable 
proper  or  not. 

26 


394  THE  PHARISEE  AND  THE  PUBLICAN. 

gross  offences,  have  remained  ignorant  of  the  plague  of  their  own  hearts, 
and  have  never  learned  to  say,  Deliver  me  from  mine  adversary,  who 
do  not  even  know  that  they  have  an  adversary  ;  the  other,  the  represen- 
tative of  all  who,  though  they  have  much  and  grievously  transgressed, 
are  now  feeling  the  burden  of  their  sins,  and  heartily  mourning  them, 
who  also  are  yearning  after  one  who  shall  deliver  them  from  those  sins, 
and  from  the  curse  of  God's  broken  law.  The  parable  would  make  U3 
feel  how  much  nearer  is  such  an  one  to  the  kingdom  of  God  than  the 
self-complacent  Pharisee,  or  than  any  who  share  in  the  spirit  and  tem- 
per of  the  Pharisee, — that  he  indeed  may  be  within  it,  while  the  other  is 
without.* 

It  is  a  mistake  growing  out  of  forgetfulness  of  Jewish  and  early 
Christian  customs,  when  some  commentators  see  in  the  fact  that  the 
-7 Pharisee  prayed  slandlng,  an  evidence  already  manifesting  itself,  of  his 
pride. ■(■  Even  the  parable  itself  contradicts  this  notion,  for  the  publi- 
can, whose  prayer  was  an  humble  one,  stood  also.  But  to  pray  standing 
was  the  manner  of  the  Jews  ;  (1  Kin.  viii.  22 ;  2  Chron.  vi.  12  ;  Matt. 
vi.  5  ;  Mark  xi.  25  ;)  though  in  moments  of  a  more  than  ordinary  humi- 
liation or  emotion  of  heart,  they  changed  this  attitude  for  one  of  kneeling 
or  prostration.  (Dan.  vi.  10;  2  Chron.  vi.  13;  Acts  ix.  40;  xx.  36; 
xxi.  5.)  The  term  station  (statio)  passed  into  the  usage  of  the  Christian 
Church ;  it  was  so  called,  as  Ambrose  explains  it,  because  standing  the 
Christian  soldier  repelled  the  attacks  of  his  spiritual  enemy ;  and  on  the 
Lord's  day  the  faithful  stood  in  prayer,  to  commemorate  their  Saviour's 
resurrection  on  that  day  ;  through  which  they,  who  by  sin  had  fallen, 
vwerc  again  lifted  up  and  set  upon  their  feet.ij:  Some  have  combined  the 
words  somewhat  differently,  and  rendered  the  passage  in  this  way ; 
•"  The  Pharisee  stood  hy  himself,^  and  prayed."  There  would  be  cer- 
I tainly  something  morally  striking  in  this  construction  of  the  passage, 

*  Gregory  the  Great  {Moral.,  1.  19,  c.  21)  wittily  likens  this  Pharisee,  and  all 
who,  because  of  their  victory  over  certain  temptations,  are  exalted  with  pride,  and 
80  perish  through  their  very  successes,  to  Eleazar,  who  killed  the  elephant,  but  was 
himself  crushed  by  its  falling  body  (1  Mace.  vi.  46)  :  In  prselio  elephantem  ferieng 
■8travit,sed  sub  ipso  quern  extinxit,  occubuit. 

+  Tirinus  :  Pharisaeus  stans  superbo  et  erecto  animo,  quasi  Deum  ad  judicium 
provocans  :  so  also  Theophylact.  It  is  possible  however,  the  word  may  be  emphatic, 
— He  stoodJoTNvardjrominently  so  that  all  men  might  see  him  as  he  was  engaged  in 
his  devotions,  (see  Matt.  vi.  5,)  which  would  then  contrast  with  the  fioKpoOev  ianm-,  and 
the  whole  attitude  of  the  publican;  on  which  see  Cyprian,  De  Orat.  Dom.,  ad  init. ; 
and  Ambrose,  De  Off.  Minist.,  1.  1,  c.  18,  §  70. 

X  See  BiNGHAJrt's  Christ.  Antt.,  b.  13,  c.  8,  §  3. 

§  So  Cameron  and  J.  Cappelius  in  the  Crit.  Sac,  who  make  npdi  lavruv  «»  Kad' 
lavTuv. 


THE  PHARISEE  AND  THE  PUBLICAN.  395 

indicating  as  it  would  that  the  Pharisee, — the  separatist  in  spirit  as  in 
name,*  and  now  also  in  outward  act, — desired  to  put  a  distance  between 
himself  and  all  unclean  worshippers ;  (see  Isai.  Ixv.  5  ;)  but  the  other 
construction,  it  is  generally  agreed,  should  be  adhered  to. 

His  prayer  at  first  seems  to  promise  well ;  "  God,  I  thank  thee,'^  yet 
its  early  promise  quickly  disappears  ;  under  the  pretence  of  thankfulness 
to  God,  he  does  but  thinly  veil  his  exaltation  of  self;  and  he  cannot 
thank  God  for  what  he  has  done  for  him,  without  insulting  and  casting 
scorn  upon  others.  He  thanks  hirn  indeed,  but  not  aright  ;"|"  for  the 
Pharisees,  as  Grotius  well  observes,  ''  did  not  exclude  the  divine  help. 
But  they  who  allow  it  and  use  this  language,  are  frequently  ungrateful  to 
it,  allotting,  as  they  do,  to  themselves  the  first  share  in  virtuous  actions,  to 
God  the  second  ;  or  so  recognizing  common  benefits,  as  to  avoid  fleeing 
as  suppliants  to  that  peculiar  mercy,  which  their  own  sins  require.":}: 
Thus  it  was  with  him :  but  the  right  recognition  of  God's  grace  will 
always  be  accompanied  with  deep  self-abasement,  while  we  confess  how 
little  true  we  have  been  to  that  grace, — how  infinitely  short  we  are  of 
what  we  ought  to,  and  might,  have  been,  having  had  such  help  at  com- 
mand ;  and  moreover  we  shall  thank  him  as  much  for  our  needs,  for  the 
sense  of  need  which  he  has  awakened  within  us,  as  for  the  supplies  of 
grace  which  he  has  given  us.  But  this  Pharisee  thanks  God  that  he  is 
^'not  as  other  men/'  as  the  rest  of  men,  dividing  the  whole  of  mankind 
into  two  classes,  putting  himself  in  a  class  alone,  and  thrusting  down  all 
beside  himself  into  the  other  class ;  his  arrogance  reaches  even  to  such 
a  pitch  as  this ;  he  in  one  class,  all  the  world  besides  in  the  other.  And 
as  he  can  think  nothing  too  good  of  himself,  so  nothing  too  bad  of 
them  ;  they  do  not  merely  come  a  little  short  of  his  excellencies,  but 
they  are  "  extortioners,  unjust,  adulterers."     And  then,  his  eye  alighting 

*  Hesychius :  ^apKrator  aipupiajiivoi,  fitjicpiajiivo;,  Kadapus.  St.  Bernard  observes 
how  he  isolates  himself  in  his  prayer  :  Gratias  agit  non  quia  bonus,  sed  quia  solus, 
non  tarn  de  bonis  quae  habet,  qucim  de  nialis  quae  in  aliis  videt. 

t  Augustine  says  here,  (Serin.  115,  c.  3,)  with  an  eye  to  the  Pelagians,  the  ingrati 
gratiae:  Quid  est  ergo  qui  impie  oppugnat  gratiam,  si  reprehenditur  qui  superbe  agit 
gratias  ? 

t  There  is  an  interesting  anecdote  told  o(  the  writer  of  these  words,  which  con- 
nects itself  with  this  parable.  At  Rostock,  where  he  was  overtaken  by  a  mortal  ill- 
ness on  his  way  to  Sweden,  he  was  attended  on  his  death-bed  by  a  Lutheran  clergy- 
man, named  Quistorp.  When  this  last  reminded  him,  with  the  fidelity  due  to  a  dying 
man,  on  the  one  side,  of  all  his  sins  known  and  unknown,  and  on  the  other,  not  of  hia 
merits  and  reputation  which  filled  the  world,  but  only  of  the  grace  of  God  in  Christ 
Jesus,  as  of  the  one  way  of  salvation,  and  of  the  publican  who  had  known  how  to  lay 
hold  of  that  way,  Grotius  replied,  •'  I  am  that  publican,"  and  so  expired.  Quistorj^ 
has  himself  given  the  account  in  a  letter  to  Calovius,  the  old  antagonist  of  Grotiiw. 


396  THE  PHARISEE  AND  THE  PUBLICAIV. 

on  the  publican,*  of  whom  he  may  have  known  nothing,  but  that  he  was 
a  publican,  he  drags  him  into  his  prayer,  making  him  to  supply  the 
dark  back-ground  on  which  the  bright  colours  of  his  own  virtues  shall 
more  gloriously  appear — and  in  the  blindness  of  his  heart  finding,  it  may 
be,  in  the  deep  heart-earnestness  with  which  the  penitent  was  beating  his 
breast,  in  the  fixedness  of  his  downcast  eyes,  proofs  in  confirmation  oT 
the  judgment  which  he  passes  upon  him.  He,  thank  God,  has  no  need 
to  beat  his  breast  in  that  fashion,  nor  to  cast  his  eyes  in  that  shame 
upon  the  ground ;  he  has  done  nothing  to  call  for  this. 

So  perfect  is  he  in  regard  to  the  commands  of  the  second  table.  He 
now  returns  to  the  first ;  in  that  also  he  is  without  blame.  "  I  fast  twice 
in  the  week."  He  is  evidently  boasting  his  works  of  supererogation. 
According  to  the  law  of  Moses,  but  one  fast-day  in  the  year  was  ap- 
pointed, the  great  day  of  atonement,-f-  (Lev.  xvi.  29;  Num.  xxix.  7,) 
but  the  more  religious  Jews,  both  those  who  were  so  and  those  who 
would  seem  so,  and  especially  the  Pharisees,  kept  two  fasts  weekly,:|;  on 
the  second  and  fifth  days  in  the  week.  Thus  does  he  r  nor  is  this  all : 
'^  I  give  tithes  of  all  that  I  possess  ;"§  the  law  commanded  only  to  tithe 
the  fruit  of  the  field  and  produce  of  the  cattle,  (Num.  xviir.  21 ;  Deut. 
xiv.  22  ;  Lev.  xxvii.  30,)  but  he  tithed  mint  and  cummrn,  (Matt,  xxiii. 
23,)  all  that  came  into  his  possession,  down  to  the  trifles  on  which  there 
was  question,  even  in  the  Jewish  schools,  whether  it  was  needful  to  tithe 
them  or  not.  (Hos.  sii.  8.)  He  would  therefore  in  both  respects  lay 
claim  to  doing  more  than  might  strictly  be  demanded  of  him  ;  he  would 
bring  in  God  as  his  debtor ;  turning  those  very  precepts  concerning 
fasiing  and  paying  of  tithes,  which  were  given  to  men,  the  first  to  wakeg 
in  them  the  sense  of  inward  poverty  and  need,  the  second  to  bring  then) 
to  feel  that  whatever  they  had,  they  were  debtors  for  it  to  God  and 
stewards  of  his, — turning  even  these  into  occasions  for  self-exaltation, 
and  using  them  to  minister  to  his  arrogance  and  his  pride.  Acknow- 
ledgment of  wants  or  confession  of  sin,  there  is  none  in  his  prayer,  if 

*  Augustine,  (Enarr.  I*  in  Ps.  Ixx.  2.)  :  Hoc  jam  non  est  exstiltare,  sed  insnltare. 

t  Called  therefore  /i  vrimda,  Acts  xxvii.  9  ;  and  by  Philo,  vrtareiai  copri'i. 

t  The  Latin  Fathers  are  led  astray  by  the  too  aa/S/^uTov  here,  (in  the  Vufgate,  in 
sabbato,)  and  understand  the  Pharisee  to  say  that  he  fasted  twice  vpon  the  Sabbath, — 
though  it  is  difficult  to  guess  what  they  could  have  understood  by  the  twice  fasting 
upon  one  day.  (See  Augustine's  Ep.  36,  c.  4.)  But  the  week  was  entitled,  ra  aitSiSara, 
or  sometimes  as  here,  to  ad00aTov,  deriving  its  title  from  its  chiefeat  day,  as  on  the  other 
hand  the  Sabbath  was  called  iffiojiai. 

§  'Oaa  KTd^ai,  which  should  be  rather,  All  that  I  acquire,  or.  All  that  I  earn  (qti« 
mihi  redeunt).  It  is  only  the  perfect  xcKTi^jiai  which  means,  I  possess, — in  other  words, 
I  have  earned.  All  the  English  translations,  with  the  Vulgate  (quse  possideo),  share  in  a 
common  error. 


THE  PHARISEE  AND  THE  PUBLICAN.  397 

prayer  it  can  be  called,  which  is  without  these.*  "  Had  he  then  no 
sins  to  confess  ?  Yes,  he  too  had  sins,  but  perverse  and  knowing  not 
whither  he  had  come,  he  was  like  a  patient  on  the  table  of  a  surgeon, 
who  should  show  his  sound  limbs  and  cover  his  hurts.  But  let  God  cover 
,  thy  hurts,  and  not  thou  :  for  if,  ashamed,  thou  seekest  to  cover  them, 
the  physician  will  not  cure  them.  Let  him  cover  and  cure  them ;  for 
under  the  covering  of  the  physician  the  wound  is  healed,  under  the  cov- 
ering of  the  sufferer  it  is  only  concealed  ;  and  concealed  from  whom  ? 
from  him  to  whom  all  things  are  known,  "f 

It  aggravates  our  sense  of  the  moral  outrage  which  is  involved  in  the 
Pharisee's  contemptuous  allusion  to  his  fellow-worshipper,  if  we  keep  in 
mind  that  in  this  last  we  are  to  see  one  who  at  this  very  moment  was 
passing  into  the  kingdom  of  God,  who  had  come  in  the  fulness  of  a  con- 
trite heart,  to  make,  as  I  think  evidently  is  meant,  the  first  deep  confes- 
sion of  his  sins  past  which  had  ever  found  utterance  from  his  lips,  in 
whom  under  sore  pangs  the'new  man  was  being  born.  How  horrible  a 
thing  does  the  Pharisee's  untimely  scorn  appear,  when  we  think  of  it, 
mingling  as  a  harshest  discord  with  the  songs,  the  Te  Deums  of  angels, 
which  at  this  very  moment  hailed  the  lost  which  was  found,  the  sinner 
that  repented.  For  "  the  ■publican  standing  afar  off,"  though,  as  Augus- 
tine observes,  not  afar  off  from  God,  for  the  Lord  is  nigh  unto  them  that 
are  of  a  contrite  heart,  "  would  not  lift  up  so  much  as  Ids  eyes  :j:  unto 
heaven,"  to  the  dwelling  of  the  Holy  One,  for  he  felt  as  (he  prodigal, 
that  he  had  sinned  against  heaven,  (Luke  xv.  18,)  as  Ezra  when  he  ex- 
claimed, "  O  my  God,  I  am  ashamed,  and  blush  to  lift  up  my  face  to 
thee,  my  God  :  for  our  iniquities  are  increased  over  our  heads,  and  our 
trespass  is  grown  up  unto  the  heavens."     (Ezra  ix.  6.)   He  stood  "  o/ar 


*  Augustine  {Serm.  290,  c.  6)  :  Rogare  veneras,  an  te  laudare?  totum  te  habere 
dixisti  ;  nihil  tanquam  egens  petisti.  Quomodo  ergo  orare  venisti  ]  And  Serm.  115, 
c.  6  :  Parum  est,  non  Deum  rogare  sed  se  laudare  ;  insuper  et  roganti  insultare. 

t  Augustine,  {Enarr.  2'-  in  Ps.  xxxi.  2,)  who  has  in  the  same  place  much  more  that 
is  excellent  on  this  parable.  See,  also,  Serm.  351,  c.  1  :  Non  enim  ille  Pharisaeus  tam 
sua  sanitate,  qukm  morborum  alienorum  comparatione  gaudebat.  Utilius  autem  illi 
erat.quoniam  ad  medicum  venerat.ea  de  quibus  aegrotabat  confitendo  monstrare,quain 
dissimulare  k  vulneribus  suis,  et  de  cicairicibus  alienis  audere  gloriari.  Non  ergo  mi- 
rum,  si  publicanus  magis  curatus  abscessit,  quem  non  puduit  ostendere  quod  dolebat. 
Cf.  Chrysostom,  De  Pmnit  ,  Horn.  2,  4. 

I  "  Not  so  much  as  his  eyes" — far  less  then  his  hands  and  his  countenance,  which 
yet  would  be  usually  lifted  up  in  prayer  ;  (1  Tim.  ii.  8  :  1  Kin.  viii.  54  ;  Heb.  xii.  12 : 
Ps.  xxviii.  2  ;)  which  no  doubt  the  Pharisee  had  lifted  up  in  his.  The  feeling,  that  in 
the  eyes  cast  down  to  the  ground  is  the  natural  expression  of  shame  and  humiliation,  is 
permanently  embodied  in  the  word  (far/j(/)£ia,  from  Kara  and  ^uoy.  Cf.  Tacitus  (Hist.  4, 
72) :  Stabant  conscientia.  flagitii  maestse  fixis  in  terram  oculis. 


398  THE  PHARISEE  AND  THE  PUBLICAN. 

q^,"  not  that  he  was  a  proselyte  or  a  heathen,  or  had  not  full  right  to  ap- 
proach, for  undoubtedly  he  also  was  a  Jew ;  but  in  reverent  awe,  not 
presuming  to  press  nearer  to  the  holy  place,  for  he  knew  something  of 
the  holiness  of  God,  and  (which  always  exactly  keeps  pace  with  that 
knowledge)  of  his  own  sinfulness  and  defilement  ;  he  felt  that  his  sins 
had  set  set  him  at  a  distance  from  God,  and  until  he  had  received  the 
atonement,  the  propitiation  which  he  asks  for,  he  could  not  presume  to 
draw  near.  Moreover,  he  "  smote  ttpon  his  breast,"  an  outward  sign 
of  inward  grief  or  self-accusation,*  (Luke  xxiii.  48,)  as  one  judging 
himself,  that  he  might  not  be  judged  of  the  Lord,  and  who  would  ac- 
knowledge how  much  heavier  strokes  might  justly  come  upon  him, — 
at  the  same  time  "  saying,  God  he  mercifvl-f  to  me  a  sinner, "X  or  "  to  me, 
the  sinful  one  ;"  for  as  the  other  had  singled  himself  out  as  the  most 
eminent  of  saints,  or  indeed  as  the  one  holy  one  in  the  world,  so  ihe  pub- 
lican singles  himself  out  as  the  chiefof  sinners,  the  man  in  whom  all  sins 
have  met — a  characteristic  trait !  for  who  at  that  moment  when  he  is 
first  truly  convinced  of  his  sins,  thinks  any  other  man's  sins  can  be  equal 
to  his  own  ? 

And  he  found  the  mercy  which  he  asked  ',  his  prayer  like  incense 
ascended  unto  heaven,  a  sacrifice  of  sweet  savour,  while  the  prayer  of 
the  other  was  blown  back  like  smoke  into  his  own  eyes ;  for  "  God  re- 
sisteth  the  proud,  but  giveth  grace  unto  the  humble  :"  "  /  tell  you  this  man 
went  down  to  his  house  justified  rather  than  the  other. "^    Not  merely  was 

*  Augustine  (Serm.  67,  c.  I) :  Tundere  pectus,  quid  est,  nisi  argere  quod  latet  in 
pectore,et  evident!  puisu  occultuni  castigare  peccatum  ;  for  as  elsewhere  he  says:  Quid 
est  homo  pcenitens,  nisi  homo  sibi  irascens  ?     Bengel :   Ubi  dolor,  ibi  manus. 

t  'WaaOnrt.  The  selection  of  this  word  is  very  observable  :  see  Passow,  who  witf>- 
out  any  reference  to  Scripture,  shows  how  IXdaKoiiai  implies  not  reconciliation  only,  but 
reconciliation  effected  through  some  gift,  or  sacrifice,  or  offering;  so  that  Kocher  {An- 
alecta,  in  loc.)  has  right  when  he  says  :  Earn  vocis  iXdadrtre  vim  esse,  ul  causam  meri- 
toriam  propitiationis,  nempe  cruentam  Christi  passionem  et  mortem^  simul  comprehen- 
dat  et  indicet. 

t  Augustine  {In  Evang.  Joh.,  Tract.  12) :  Qui  confitetur  peccata  sua  et  accusal 
peccata  sua,  jam  cum  Deo  facit.  Accusat  Deus  pieccata  tua  :  si  et  lu  accusas,  conjun- 
geris  Deo.  Quasi  duje  res  sunt,  homo  et  peccator.  Quod  audis  homo,  Deus  fecit : 
quod  audis  peccator,  ipse  homo  fecit.  Dele  quod  fecisti,  ut  Deus  salvet  quod  fecit. 
Oporlet  ut  odcris  in  te  opus  tuum,  ct  ames  in  te  opus  Dei.  Cf  Serm.  36,  c.  11  ;  and 
Enarr.  in  Ps.  Ixvi.  5.  Of  this  publican  he  says  {Enarr.  in  Ps.  xxxix):  Sibi  non  pa- 
cebat  ut  ille  parceret,  se  agnoscebat  ut  ille  ignosceret,  se  puniebat  ut  ille  liberaret. 

§  The  reading  ieStKaioyidfos  ...  5)  CKCtvni ;  which  is  the  lectio  recepta  of  our  Greek 
Testaments,  has,  I  believe,  no  MS.  authority  for  it  whatever.  It  was  an  unauthorized 
emendation  in  the  Elzevir  edition,  which  has  since  held  its  place  in  the  text.  The  ques- 
tion lies  between  the  readings  ?;  yup  inctvof,  which  has  far  the  greater  amount  of  out- 
ward authorit    in  its  favour,  but  is  hardly  intelligible,  and  nof'  iKcii/ov,  which,  with  leas 


THE  PHARISEE  AND  THE  PUBLICAN.  399 

he  justified  in  the  secret,  unsearchable  counsels  of  God,  but  he  '^went 
down  to  his  house  justified,"  with  a  sweet  sense  of  a  received  forgiveness 
shed  abroad  upon  his  heart ;  for  God's  justification  of  the  sinner  is  in- 
deed a  transitive  act,  and  passes  from  him  to  its  object.  The  other  mean- 
while went  down  from  the  temple,  his  prayer  being  finished,  with  the 
same  cold,  dead  heart,  with  which  he  had  gone  up.  Christ  does  not 
mean  that  one  by  comparison  with  the  other  was  justified,  for  there  are 
no  degrees  in  justification,  but  that  one  absolutely  was  justified,  was  con- 
templated of  God  as  a  righteous  man,  and  the  other  was  not;*  so  that 
here  the  words  found  their  fulfilment,  "  He  hath  filled  the  hungry  with 
good  things,  and  the  rich  he  hath  sent  empty  away  ;"  "  Though  the  Lord 
be  high,  yet  hath  he  respect  unto  the  lowly,  but  the  proud  he  knoweth 
afar  off."  (Ps.  cxxxviii.  6  ;  Isai.  Ivii.  15 ;  1  Pet.  v.  5,  6.)t  And  the 
whole  parable  fitly  concludes  with  that  weighty  saying,  which  had  al- 
ready formed  part  of  another  of  the  Lord's  discourses,  (xiv.  11,)  and 
which,  indeed,  from  the  all-important  truth  which  it  contains,  might  well 
have  been  often  uttered  :  "  For  every  one  that  exalteth  himself  shall  he 
abased,  and  he  that  kumbleth  himself  shall  be  exalted;'''''^  words  which 
here  form  a  beautiful  transition  to  the  bringing  of  the  children  to  Jesus, 
the  incident  next  recorded  by  our  Evangelist. 

external  support,  has  yet  been  received,  as  it  seems  to  me  rightly,  into  the  text  of  the 
later  critical  editions.  It  is  probable  that  HAP  having  by  mistake  been  written  TAP, 
the  insertion  of  5)  and  the  change  oi  iKcvToi'  into  Uclvos  followed,  as  needful  to  make  the 
words  render  up  any  sense  at  all. 

*  It  is  characteristic  that  this  should  be  denied  by  nearly  all  the  chief  commentators 
of  the  Roman  Church,  though  in  fact  this  is  the  very  truth  which  the  parable  is  to  teach. 
Thus  Maldonatus:  Non  significatur  aut  publicanum  verfe  justificatum  fuisse,  aut  verfe 
damnatum  Pharisaeum,  quanquam  ita  Euthymius  intelligit.  He  might  have  added 
many  more  who  so  understand  it ;  Tertullian,  for  instance,  {Adv.  Marc.,\.  4,  c.  36,) 
affirms:  Alterum  reprobatum,alterum  justificatum  descendisse  ;  and  Augustine  :  Nam 
fiuperbia  in  Pharisaeo  de  temple  damnata  descendit,  et  humilitas  in  publicano  ante  Dei 
oculos  approbata  ascendit. 

t  Augustine  says  of  these  two  in  the  parable  (Enarr.  in  Ps.  xciii.  12) :  Ille  super- 
bus  erat  in  bonis  factis,  ille  humilis  in  malis  factis.  .  .  .  Placuit  Deo  magis  humilitas 
in  malis  factis,  qua,m  superbia  in  bonis.  These  are  striking  words,  yet  will  not  bear 
any  close  examination.  There  may  he,  and  was  here,  a  humilitas  post  mala  facta,  but 
there  is  no  humilitas  in  malis  factis,  since  in  every  s\n  there  is  a  root  of  deadly  pride  out 
of  which  it  grows,  a  daring  of  the  creature  to  lift  itself  up  against  the  Creator ;  and 
again,  there  is  no  possibility  of  a  superbia  in  bonis,  since  they  cease  to  be  good  in  which 
this  pride  mingles. 

i  Augustine  :  Videte,  fratres,  miraculum  magnum,  altus  est  Deus  ;  erigis  te,  et  fugit 
a  te  ;  humilias  te,et  descendit  ad  te  ;  and  of  this  Pharisee  (Enarr.  2*  in  Ps.  xxxi.  4)   :: 
Noluit  humiliari  confessione  iniquitatis  suae  ;  humiliatus  est  pondere  manfis  Dei. 


400  THE  POUNDS. 


PARABLE  XXX. 


THE    POUNDS 

Luke  xix.  11-27. 


The  chiefest  part  of  what  might  else  have  been  said  upon  this  parable, 
has  been  anticipated  in  that  of  the  Talents.  The  reasons  for  affirming 
this  to  be  not  the  same,  but  another  parable,  have  been  already  given. 
Not  to  speak  of  the  many  and  important  variations  between  the  two — 
variations  so  important  that  the  two  accounts  can  scarcely  be  records  O'f 
the  same  discourse — the  parables  bear  the  most  decisive  marks,  each 
one,  of  its  adaptation  to  the  peculiar  circumstances  under  which  it  is 
recorded  as  having  been  spoken  ;  while  in  each  case,  the  other  would 
not  fit  the  time  or  place  at  all  so  well.*  But  on  this  matter  it  will  be 
needless  to  repeat,  save  exceedingly  briefly,  vvhat  has  been  already  said. 
We  are  first  informed  what  the  motive  of  the  parable  was  :  "iJe  added 
and  spake  a  parable,  because  he  was  nigh  to  Jerusalem,,  and  because  they 
thought  that  the  kingdom  of  God  should  ivimediately  appear. ^^  It  was 
uttered  then  to  repress  impatience,  to  teach  the  need  of  a  patient  waiting 
for  Christ,  and  not  merely  that,  but  also  of  an  active  working  for  him 
during  the  time  of  his  absence  :  such  was  its  aim  as  regarded  those  who 
had  joined  themselves  entirely  to  him,  and  had  placed  themselves  to  him 
in  the  relation  of  servants  to  their  Lord  and  Master.  But  be  had  also 
other  hearers  on  this  his  last  journey  to  Jerusalem,  such  as  had  not  in- 
deed thus  attached  themselves  to  him,  but  a  multitude  drawn  together  by 
wonder,  by  curiosity,  and  by  other  mingled  motives.  These,  though 
now  having  a  certain  good  will  toward  Christ  and  his  doctrine,  and 
though  being,  so  long  as  they  were  in  his  presence,  to  a  considerable 
degree  under  his  influence,  yet  not  the  less  were  exposed  to  all  the  evil 
influences  of  their  age,  and  liable  to  be  drawn  presently  into  the  mighty 
stream  of  hostility  which  was  now  running  so  fiercely  and  so  fast  against 
him  :  and  this  especially,  wjien  in  his  own  person  he  was  no  more 
among  them,  when  his  death  had  seemed  to  belie  his   lofty  pretensions. 

•  Clirysostom  {In  Matth  ,  Horn.  78)  distinctly  affirms  fliem  to  be  different,  and  had 
not  Augustine  believed  ihem  so,  we  may  confidently  assume  that  in  his  work,  De  Con- 
tensu  Evang  ,  he  would  have  soupht  to  bring  them  into  harmony. 


THE  POUNDS.  401 

For  them  is  meant  that  part  of  the  parable  (ver.  14-27)  concerning  the 
citizens  who  hated  to  have  their  countryman  set  over  them  as  their  Iving, 
and  as  soon  as  he  had  withdrawn  from  them  for  a  while,  sent  after  him 
msesages,  disclaiming  iiim  for  their  lord,  but  who  at  his  return  paid  the 
fearful  penalties  of  their  hatred  and  defiance. 

In  the  great  Roman  empire,  wherein  the  senate  of  Rome,  and  after- 
wards its  emperors,  though  not  kings  themselves,  yet  made  and  unmade 
kings,  such  a  circumstance  as  that  which  serves  for  the  groundwork  of 
this  parable  can  have  been  of  no  unfrequent  occurrence.  Thus  Herod 
the  Great  was  at  first  no  more  than  a  subordinate  officer  in  Judaea,*  and 
flying  to  Rome  before  Antigonus,  was  there  declared  by  the  senate, 
through  the  influence  of  Antony,  king  of  the  Jews.  In  like  manner  his 
son  Archelaus  had  personally  to  wait  upon  Augustus  in  Rome,  before 
he  inherited  his  father's  dominions,  which  he  then  did,  not  indeed  as  king, 
but  only  as  ethnarch.  History  furnishes  many  other  examples,  for  it 
was  felt  over  the  world,  in  the  words  of  the  historian  of  the  Macca- 
bees, "  whom  they  [the  Romans]  would  help  to  a  kingdom,  those  reign, 
and  whom  again  they  would,  they  displace."  (1  Mace.  viii.  13.)  That 
he  who  should  thus  seek  and  obtain  a  kingdom  was  one  well-born,  a  "mo- 
ileman,''  is  only  what  we  should  naturally  expect,  as  it  would  be  little 
likely  that  any  other  would  lift  his  hopes  so  high,  or  would  have  such 
probability  of  being  able  to  maintain  himself  on  his  throne,  as  would  ren- 
der it  likely  that  the  higher  authority  would  install  him  there.  Nor  is 
this  circumstance  without  its  deeper  significance,  for  who  was  of  such 
noble  birth  as  he,  who,  even  according  to  the  flesh,  came  of  earth's  first 
blood — was  the  Son  of  Abraham,  the  Son  of  David  ;  who  was  besides 
the  eternal  and  only-begotten  Son  of  God  ? 

The  kingdom  which  this  nobleman  goes  to  receive,  can  scarcely  be, 
as  some  understand  it,  another  kingdom,  at  a  distance  from  the  land  of 
his  birth,  but  rather  he  goes  to  receive  the  investiture  of  that  kingdom, 
whereof  before  he  was  only  one  of  the  more  illustrious  citizens,  and 
which  after  a  while  he  returns  to  reign  over  as  its  king.  Either  sup- 
position, it  is  true,  would  suit  his  case,  whom  this  nobleman  represents : 
he  went  to  be  enthroned  in  his  heavenly  state,  and  in  heaven  to  rule 
over  all  as  the  Son  of  man  ;  (Heb.  ii.  7,  8 ;)  thus  Theophylact  explains 
it.  But  it  might  with  equal  truth  be  said  that  he  went  to  receive  solemn 
investiture  of  that  earthly  kingdom,  which  he  had  purchased  with  his 
blood,  and  which  hereafter  he  shall  return  and  claim  as  his  own,  sitting 
on  the  throne  of  his  father  David  ; — and  the  circumstances  of  the  narra- 
tive evidently  point  to  the  last  as  the  corrector  view  of  the  matter.     It 

*  First  Procurator ;  afterwards,  crrpari/yJj. 


402  THE  POUNDS. 

was  not  over  strangers,  but  over  his  fellovv-citizens,  that  the  nobleman 
departed  to  solicit  a  dominion — else  would  there  be  no  meaning  in  their 
message,  "  We  will  not  have  this  man  to  reign  over  i/s;"  whether  these 
words  imply,  as  generally  taken,  that  they,  hearing  of  his  purpose  to  go 
and  solicit  the  kingdom,  give  him  notice  beforehand  that  they  will  yield 
him  no  obedience,  that  however  he  may  receive  at  other  hands  the  do- 
minion over  them,  they  will  not  acknowledge  his  rule,  nor  own  allegi- 
ance to  him, — or  whether,  as  is  more  probable,  it  is  a  message,  or  an 
embassage  rather,  which  they  send  to  the  court  whither  he  has  gone,  to 
anticipate  and  counter-work  him  there,  to  declare  how  unwelcome  his 
exaltation  would  be  ; — *'  We  do  not  desire  that  this  man  should  be  made 
our  king."*  It  was  exactly  thus  that  a  faction  of  the  Jews,  in  the 
case  of  Archelaus,  sent  ambassadors  to  the  court  of  Augustus  to  accuse 
him  there,  and  if  possible  to  hinder  his  elevation  over  them.  So  again 
we  find  him  on  his  return  exercising  kingly  functions  among  his  fellow- 
citizens — setting  his  servants  over  five  cities,  and  over  ten — having 
power  of  life  and  death,  and  executing  extreme  judgment  on  those  that 
had  refused  to  admit  his  authority.  There  can  hardly  then  be  a  ques- 
tion but  that  the  kingdom  which  he  goes  to  receive,  is  not  any  other, 
but  that  very  same  of  which  he  was  himself  originally  a  citizen. 

Before  however  he  went, '"/te  called  his  ten  servants"  or  rather,  ten 
servants  of  his,"!" "  and  delivered  them  ten  pounds,  and  said  unto  them, 
Occupy  \  till  I  come.''  The  sum  here  delivered  to  the  servants  is  very 
much  smaller  than  that  which,  in  St.  Matthew,  the  man  who  was  travel- 
ling into  a  far  country  committed  to  his  servants'  keeping. §  This  is  at 
once  explained,  if  we  keep  in  mind  how  that  parable  was  spoken  to  the 
apostles,  who  of  course  had  received  infinitely  the  largest  gifts  of  any 
from  Christ,  while  this  is  spoken  to  the  disciples  generally,  whose  facul- 
ties were  comparatively  fewer.     How  remarkable  is  this  still  ministry, 

*  The  speaking  of  him  in  the  third  person,  "  this  man,"  (tovtov,)  seems  a  strong 
confirmation  of  this  view,  and  npeaffcia  is  an  embassage  rather  than  a  message.  (See 
Luiie  xiv.  32.) 

t  Besides  that  the  original  requires  this,  it  would  be  absurd  to  suppose  that,  with  the 
immense  households  of  antiquity,  which,  as  Seneca  says,  were  nations  rather  than  fami- 
lies, (see  Becker's  Gallvs,\.  1,  p.  lOG,)  this  nobleman,  of  consequence  enough  to  be 
raised  to  a  royal  dignity,  had  but  ten  servants  belonging  to  him. 

+  npny/iartiiiTiKTOt,  Employ  in  trading.  "  Occupy,"  is  here  a  Latinism.  Thus,  occu- 
pare  pecuniam,  because  money  in  business,  or  put  out  to  interest,  does  not  lie  idle,  is  in 
fact  occupied  or  employed.  So  in  Nortu's  Plutarch,  p.  629,  Phocion  refusing  Alex- 
ander's gift  says,  "  If  I  should  take  this  sum  of  money  and  occupy  it  not,  it  is  as  much 
as  I  had  it  not." 

(j  A  talent  was  =  i;243  15s.;  a  pound  (mina)  =  je4  Is.M.  (See  the  Diet,  of  Gr. 
and  Rom.  Antt.,9.  v.  Drachma,  p.  SCO. 


THE  POUNDS.  403 

these  occupations  of  peace  in  which  the  servants  of  the  future  king  should 
be  engaged,  and  that  too  while  a  rebellion  was  going  on.  A  caviller 
remarkably  enough  asks,  "  Why  did  he  not  distribute  weapons  to  his 
servants  ?  Such  would  have  been  under  present  circumstances  the  most 
natural  thing  to  have  done."  Doubtless  the  most  natural,  as  Peter  felt 
when  he  cut  off  the  ear  of  the  servant  of  the  high  priest,  as  all  have  felt, 
who  have  sought  to  fight  the  world  with  its  own  weapons,  and  by  the 
wrath  of  man  to  work  the  righteousness  of  God.  Such  identifying  of 
the  Church  with  a  worldly  kingdom  has  been  the  idea  of  the  Papacy, 
such  of  the  Anabaptists.  Men  in  either  case  feeling  strongly  that  there 
must  be  a  kingdom  of  God,  have  supposed  that  it  was  immediately  to 
appear,  (ver.  11,)  and  that  they,  and  not  Christ  himself,  were  to  bring  it 
into  this  outward  form  and  subsistence — instead  of  seeing  tliat  their  part 
was,  with  the  still  and  silent  occupation  of  their  talent,  to  lay  the  rudi- 
ments of  that  kingdom,  and  so  to  prepare  the  world  for  its  outbreaking, 
— which  outbreaking  should  yet  not  actually  come  to  pass,  till  the  King 
returned  in  his  glory. 

The  Jews  were  especially  Christ's  fellow-"  citizens,^'  for,  according 
to  the  flesh,  he  was  of  the  seed  of  Abraham,  a  Jew  and  a  member  of  the 
Jewish  polity ; — and  they  hated  him  not  merely  in  his  life,  and  until  his 
departure  out  of  this  world,  but  every  persecution  of  his  servants — the 
stoning  of  Stephen — the  beheading  of  James — the  persecutions  of  Paul, 
and  all  the  wrongs  which  they  did  to  his  people  for  his  name's  sake, 
and  because  they  were  his,  were  each  and  all  messages  of  defiance  sent 
after  him,  implicit  declarations  upon  their  part,  "  We  will  not  have  this 
man  to  reign  over  us."  And  Theophylact  well  observes,  how  twice  this 
very  declaration  found  formal  utterance  from  their  lips, — once  when 
they  cried  to  Pilate,  "  We  have  no  king  but  Caesar;"  and  again,  when 
they  said,  "  Write  not.  The  King  of  the  Jews."  When  we  give  this  pa- 
rable a  wider  range,  and  find  the  full  accomplishment  of  all  which  it 
contains,  not  at  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  but  at  the  day  of  judgment, 
— and  it  is  equally  capable  of  the  narrower  and  the  wider  interpreta- 
tion,— then  these  rebellious  citizens  will  no  longer  be  merely  the  Jews, 
but  all  such  evil  men,  as  by  word  or  deed  openly  deny  their  relation 
and  subjection  to  Jesus,  as  their  Lord  and  King,  (in  this  different  from 
the  unfaithful  servant,  for  he  allows  the  relation,  and  does  not  openly 
throw  off  the  subjection,  but  yet  evades  the  obligation  by  the  false 
glosses  of  his  own  heart,)  and  their  message  will  have  its  full  and  final 
fulfilment  in  the  great  apostasy  of  the  last  days,  which  shall  be  even  as 
this  is,  not  an  evading  merely  of  the  subjection  due  unto  Christ,  but  a 
speaking  of  great  things  against  him,  (Rev.  xiii.  5,  6  ;  Dan.  vii.  25,) 
not  merely  disobedience,  but  defiance,  even  such  as  shall  not  be  content 


404  THE  POUNDS. 

with  resisting  his  decrees,  but  shall  anticipate  and  challenge  him  to  the 
conflict:  "  The  kings  of  the  earth  set  themselves,  and  the  rulers  take 
counsel  together,  against  the  Lord  and  against  his  Anointed,  saying, 
Let  us  break  their  bands  asunder,  and  cast  away  their  cords  from  us." 
On  the  following  verses  (15-23)  there  is  little  to  say  which  has  not 
been  said  in  another  place.  At  his  return,  the  nobleman  distributes 
praise  and  rewards  to  them  that  have  been  faithful  to  him  while  he  was 
away, — punishments,  more  or  less  severe,  to  them  who  have  abused  the 
opportunity,  and  taken  advantage  of  his  absence.*  The  rewards  which 
he  imparts  to  his  faithful  servants,  are  royal,  and  this  consistently  with 
the  royal  dignity,  with  which  he  is  now  invested  ;  he  sets  them  over 
cities  :f  while  the  rewards  imparted  were  quite  different  in  the  other  pa- 
rable (Matt.  XXV.  14-30) — for  there  the  mftster  being  but  a  private  man 
would  have  no  such  power  of  setting  his  servants  in  high  places  of 
authority.  This  is  worthy  of  notice,  as  an  example  of  the  manner  in 
which  each  parable  is  in  perfect  keeping  and  harmony  with  itself 
through  all  its  minor  details,  which  is  another  reason  for  believing  them 
originally  distinct  from  one  another.  The  rewards  too,  as  they  are 
kingly,  so  are  they  also  proportioned  to  the  fidelity  of  the  servants  :  he 
whose  pound  had  made  five  pounds  was  set  over  five  cities, — he  whose 
pound  had  made  ten  was  set  over  ten.  We  hear  nothing  of  the  other 
seven  servants,  but  need  not  therefore  conclude  that  they  had  wholly 

*  This,  of  course,  is  borrowed  from  the  life,  and  is  what  often  must  have  happened. 
We  may  compare  the  conduct  of  Alexander,  rewarding  and  punishing  after  his  return 
from  his  long  Indian  expedition,  from  which  so  many  in  Western  Asia  had  believed 
that  he  never  would  come  back,  (See  the  Bishop  of  St.  David's  Hist,  of  Greece,  v.  7, 
p.  62,seq.) 

t  Such  a  method  of  showing  grace  to  servants  was  not  uncommon  in  the  East. 
Barhebraus  (quoted  by  Haver.vick,  Comm.  lib.  Dan.,  p.  87)  tells  of  a  slave,  who  giving 
proofs  of  his  prudence  and  dexterity  in  business,  his  master,  the  Sultan  Zangi,  exclaimed, 
"  It  is  fit  to  give  such  a  man  as  this,  command  over  a  city,"  and  at  once  he  made  him 
governor  of  the  fortress  Kurisch,  and  sent  him  thither. — I  cannot  find  the  force  in  these 
words,  "  Have  thou  authority  over  ten  cities,  &c.,"  which  Mr.  Greswell  does,  when 
they  supply  him  wiih  a  convincing  argument  in  favour  of  the  millennial  views,  {Exp. 
of  the  Par.,  v.  4,  p.  .501,)  for  why  should  this  image  of  ruling  over  cities  be  interpret- 
ed literally  ?  nay,  being  found  in  a  parable,  must  it  not  be  accepted  as  an  image  only, 
which  we  are  not  to  hold  fast  in  the  letter,  but,  on  the  contrary,  must  seel;  to  exchange 
for  the  truth  which  underlies  it?  That  truth  certainly  is,  that  he  who  is  faithful  in  a 
little  here,  (and  all  here  is  little  compared  to  what  is  coming,)  to  him  much  will  be  in- 
trusted in  a  future  age.  But  more  than  this,  or  what  that  much  will  be,  is  in  no  wise 
defined,  though  this,  which  Bengel  notes  on  these  "  ten  cities,"  is  doubtless  true:  Mag- 
na rerum  amplitude  ac  varietas  in  regno  Dei,  quamvis  nondum  nobis  cognita.  We 
only  know,  in  Calvin's  words:  Nunc  tanquam  absentia  negotia  la'.*orios6  curamus : 
tunc  ver6  ampla  et  multiplex  honorum  copia  ei  ad  manum  suppetet,  qua.  magnified  nos 
exomet. 


THE  POUNDS.  405 

lost  or  wasted  the  money  intrusted  to  them  ;*  rather  that  the  three  who 
come  forward  are  adduced  as  specimens  of  classes,  and  the  rest,  while 
all  that  we  are  to  learn  is  learned  from  the  three,  for  hrevity's  sake  are 
omitted. — Those  who  stand  by,  and  who  are  bidden  to  take  his  pound 
from  the  slothful  servanf,f  and  give  it  to  him  that  had  shown  himself 
the  faithfulest.  or,  at  least,  the  ablest  of  all,  are  clearly  the  angels,  who 
never  fail  to  appear  and  take  an  active  part  in  all  scenes  descriptive  of 
the  final  judgment.:}: 

When  the  king  had  thus  distributed  praise  and  blame,  rewards  and 
penalties,  to  thsoe  who  stand  in  the  more  immediate  relations  of  ser- 
vants to  him,  to  those  of  his  own  household, — for  the  Church  is  the 
household  of  God, — he  proceeds  to  execute  vengeance  on  his  enemies? 
— on  all  who  had  openly  cast  off  allegiance  to  him,  and  denied  that  they 
belonged  to  his  house  at  all.  (Prov.  xx.  8.)  At  his  command  they  are 
brought  before  him,  and  slain  before  his  face  ;  as  their  guilt  was  greater, 
so  their  punishment  is  more  terrible  than  that  of  the  slothful  servant. 
In  the  Marriage  of  the  King's  Son  (Matt.  xxii.  1)  the  vengeance  on  the 
open  enemies  goes  before  that  on  the   hypocritical  friend  or  servant ; — 

*  Thus  Ambrose  {Exp.  in  Luc,  1.  8,  c.  95) :  De  aliis  siletur,  qui  quasi  prodigi  de- 
bitores,  quod  acceperant,  perdideiunt. 

t  It  is  characteristic  that  the  aovSuptov  (sudarium)  which,  not  exerting  himself,  this 
idle  servant  does  not  need  for  its  proper  use,  ("  in  the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt  thou  eat 
bread,"  Gen.  iii.  19,)  he  uses  for  the  wrapping  up  of  his  pound.  That  he  had  it  disen- 
gaged, and  so  free  to  be  turned  to  this  purpose,  was  itself  a  witness  against  him. 

t  Dschelaleddin,  whom  Von  Hammer  speaks  of  as  the  great  religious  poet  of  the 
modern  East,  has  an  interesting  little  poem  resting  on  the  same  idea  as  that  of  the  pre- 
sent parable, — namely,  that  of  life  with  all  its  powers  and  faculties,  as  a  sum  of  money 
to  be  laid  out  for  God.  As  it  is  brief  I  will  subjoin  a  translation,  made,  indeed,  through 
the  German.  (See  Ruckert's  Gedichte,\.  2,  p.  451.) 

O  thou  that  art  arrived  in  being's  land. 

Nor  knowest  how  thy  coming  here  was  planned  ; 

From  the  Schah's  palace  to  life's  city,  thou 

On  his  affairs  wert  sent,  at  his  command. 

Thee  thy  Lord  gave,  thy  faithfulness  to  prove. 

The  sum  of  life,  a  capital  in  hand. 

Hast  thou  forgotten  thine  entrusted  pound  1 

Stunned  with  the  market's  hubbub  dost  thou  stand? 

Instead  of  dreaming,  up  and  purchase  good  ; 

Buy  precious  stones,  exchange  not  gold  for  sand. 

Thou  at  the  hour  of  thy  return  wilt  see 

Thy  Monarch  set,  with  open  book  in  hand. 

What  thou  from  him  receivedst,  he  will  bring 

To  strict  account,  and  reckoning  will  demand  : 

And  a  large  blessing,  or  a  curse  from  him, 

Thy  faithfulness  or  sloth  will  then  command. 


406  THE  POUNDS. 

here  it  follows  after.  This  slaying  of  the  king's  enemies  m  his  presence, 
is  not  to  be  in  the  interpretation  mitigated  or  explained  away,  as  though 
it  belonged  merely  to  the  outer  shell  of  the  parable,  and  was  only  added 
because  such  things  were  done  in  Eastern  courts,  (1  Sam.  x.  27  ;  xi. 
12;  Jer.  lii.  10,)  and  to  add  an  air  of  truthfulness  to  the  narrative. 
Rather  it  belongs  also  to  the  innermost  kernel  of  the  parable.  The 
words  set  forth,  fearfully  indeed,  but  not  in  any  way  in  wliich  we  need 
shrink  from  applying  them  to  the  Lord  Jesus,  his  unmitigated  wrath 
against  his  enemies, — but  only  his  enemies  exactly  as  they  are  enemies 
of  all  rigliteousness, — which  shall  be  revealed  in  that  day  when  grace 
shall  have  come  to  an  end,  and  judgment  without  mercy  will  have  be- 
gun.* (Rev.  xiv.  10.)  All  this  found  its  nearest  fulfilment  in  the 
overthrow  of  Jerusalem,  and  in  the  terrible  calamities  which  went  be. 
fore  and  followed  it :  that  was,  without  doubt,  a  coming  of  Christ  to 
judgment ;  but  it  will  find  its  full  accomplishment,  when  the  wickedness 
of  an  apostate  world,  having  come  to  a  single  head,  shall  in  that  single 
head  receive  its  final  doom, — in  the  final  destruction  of  Antichrist  and 
his  armies. 

*  Augustine  often  uses  this  and  the  parallel  passage  Matt.  xxii.  13,  (as  Con.  Adv. 
Leg.  et  Proph.,  1.  l,c.  16  ;  Con.  Faust.  1.  22,  c.  14,  19)  in  argument  with  the  Mani- 
chaeans,  who,  contrasting  the  severity  of  the  God  of  the  Old  Testament  with  the  lenity 
of  the  God  of  the  New,  would  have  proved  that  they  were  not,  and  could  not  be,  one 
and  the  same.  But,  he  replies,  there  is  no  such  contrast.  As  there  is  love  in  the  Old 
Testament,  so  there  is  fear,  and  that  which  should  awaken  fear,  in  the  New  :  and  he 
alleges  the  terribleness  of  this  doom  in  proof.  The  Manicheeans  could  not  betake  them- 
selves to  their  ordinary  evasion,  that  the  passage  was  an  interpolation  or  a  corruption, 
as  they  accepted  the  parables  (see  Augustine,  Con.  Faust.,  1.  32,  c.  7,)  for  part  of  the 
uncorrupted  doctrine  of  Christ. — We  may  compare  Heb.  i.  13,  "  till  I  make  thine  ene- 
mies Ih If  footstool,"  and  we  learn  from  Josh.  x.  24,  what  the  image  is,  that  lies  under 
these  words. 


INDEX. 


'AKpoyiiitnain?,  168  n. 

Avu('j£ia,259  n. 

AvartXAfd',  59  n. 

Ancient  Christianity,  &c.,  80  n. 

Angels  rejoicing,  SO'i. 

Anointing  of  our  Lord's  feet,  230. 

Antichrist,  81. 

Apostacy  of  the  heathen  world,  309. 

'Aowrwf,  310  n. 

AvTOjiaTOi,  229  n. 

B. 

Baptism,  126,  128,  317. 
Buffai'iarZ/s,  126  n. 
Bengel,  178  n.,  325  n. 
B105,  307  n. 
Byssus,  358  n. 

C. 

Calling  of  the  Gentiles,  180. 
Characters  of  different  Gospels  marked 

in  the  Parables  they  record,  29,  30. 
Christ  as  the  Good  Shepherd — a  symbol 

in  the  Enriy  Church,  298  n. 

"  the  heir  of  all  things,"  163. 

his  second  coming,  200. 

Church  in  conflict  here,  386. 

seeking  her  lost,  301. 

Classical  phrases  frequent  in  St.  Luke, 

306  n. 
Covetousness,  263. 

D. 

AstTTvov,  281  n. 
Denarius,  139  n. 
Au^oSos,  179  n. 

AiVaio;,  125. 

Discipline  in  the  Church,  83. 
Distortion  of  the  Parables  by  the  Gnos- 
tics and  others,  38,  &c. 


Doctrine  not  to  be  grounded  op  Para- 
bles, 37. 

Donatist  idea  of  the  Church,  71-73,  82, 
108. 

Aov\€v€tv,  328  n. 

Apsffavoi/,  239. 

E. 

Ecclesiastes  ;  a  commentary  on  the  Par- 
able of  the  Pearl,  107  n. 

'EK0'i\\iiv  £^0) — holiness  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  113. 

'Ex'Xii/iTrtii',  85  n. 

"Etoii^iJ  yifjov,  182  n. 

Envy  expressed  by  the  eye,  147  n. 

Esther's  history  applied,  191  n. 

'Eratpoi,  147  n. 

EvXa/?£(a,219  n. 

F. 
Fables,  two  in  the  Old  Testament,  10  n. 
Faith— the  root  of  Charity,  187, 240  n. 

:  its  nature,  371. 

:  and  works,  196. 

Feasts  in  the  East  often  political,  172  n. 
Fides  formata,  239. 

G. 

Galilteans,  270  n. 
Liinov  iTotcti'f  ]  73  n. 
Genesareth,  lake  of,  55. 


Harmony  between  things  seen  and  un- 
seen, 18-21. 

Hezekiah's  reformation  (2  Chron.  xxx. 
10)  a  parallel  to  "  The  Marriage  of  the 
King's  Son,"  178  n. 

Historico-prophetic  School  of  interpre- 
ters, 41. 

Hours  of  the  Jews,  140  n. 

Hymn  of  Prudentius,  294  n. 


408 


INDEX. 


Interpretation  of  Two  Parables  by  our 
Lord,  34. 

J. 

Judaea  :  its  natural  position,  157. 
Justin  Martyr's  Conversion,  100. 

K. 

Ka\uv  and  kXiTo-ij — of  invitation,  280  n. 
l^arapyeXv,  276  n. 
'Kaiixctii),  144  n. 
Kepiirioc,  312  n. 
l^epaXaiow,  161  n. 

L. 

"  Labourers  in  the  Vineyard" — Jewish 
and  Mahometan  Version  of  the  Para- 
ble, 143  n. 

Lamp,  small,  204  n. 

Lazarus,  359  n. 

Leaven, 92  n. 

Lenity  of  supposition  in  our  Lord's  Par- 
ables, 186. 

Arivoi,  158  n. 

AiKjiav,  1G9  n. 

M. 

Maldonatus,  254  n. 

Mammon,  346  n. 

Man  of  Sin,  186. 

Marcion,  175  n. 

Men  compared  to  trees,  274. 

M^pi'/^i'a,  63  n. 

MtjsiuTiij,  262  n. 

Mtro/jfAtio  and  fjcrat/oia,  153  n. 

Metayer  system  of  letting  Estates,  160  n. 

Midnight,    Christ's    second    coming  at, 

202. 
Millennium,  194. 

Miracles,  in  what  like  to  Parables,  21. 
Mustard-tree,  88  n. 

N. 
Naboih's  death  a  type  of  Christ's,  165  n. 
National  life,  165. 
Nature's  present  bondage,  21. 


OiKovSitoi,  332  n. 


Uaiihv,  259  n. 

Parable  :  wherein  it  differs  from  (i.)  The 

fable,  10.     (ii.)  The  mythus,  12.  (iii.) 

The  proverb,  13.     (iv.)  The  allegory, 

14. 
Parables  in  use  before  our   Lord's  time, 

44. 
other    than    out    Lord's,    (i.) 

Jewish, 45-50, 191  n.     (ii.)  Christian, 

50-55. 

acted,  28. 

the  Seven  of  St.  Matthew  xiii. 

54  :  their  relation,  115. 
of  "  The  Ten   Virgins"  and 

"  The  Marriage  of  the  King's  Son," 

their  difference,  208. 
of"  The  Talents,"  and  "  The 

Pounds,"  different, 400. 

•  of  "The  Marriage  of  the  King's 


Son,"  and  "  The  Great  Supper"  com- 
pared, 170,287. 

YlapaiTcladai,  283  n. 

Ilapad  Ai<TO(,. — why  applied  to  Caperna- 
um, 55  n. 

n.apaTt6£i/ni,  69  n. 

YldpccTis  and  liifieats,  217  n. 

Tlapoijiia,  13. 

Hctpi^civ,  242  n. 

$i//o{>i',  185  n. 

<I>p(iy/io?  156  n. 

Pilgrim's  Progress,  an  allegory,  15  n. 

YWcovc^Ui,  261  n. 

Il\ovT£iveiiQc6v  (St.Lukexii.  15), 263  n. 

Yluvripoiijin  the  Lord's  Prayer,  masculine, 
387  n. 

Prayer,  383. 

Pro-parabola  and  epi-parabola,  36. 

Publicans,  304. 

Purgatory,  129. 

UiwY    ,  158  n. 

Putting  on  Christ,  187. 

R. 

Readings  of  the  Greek  Testament ;  Matt, 
xviii.  28,  124  n. 
xxi.  30,  152  n.  and  153. 
xxi.  44,  168  n. 
XXV.  13,  208  n. 


INDEX. 


409 


Luke  xvi.  9,  348  n. 

xviii.  14,  398  n. 
Reward',  A^j'  meaning,  149  n. 
Righteousness  not  o/  the  Law,  250. 

S. 

Sacraments  and  the  CViurch,  252,  253. 

Sayijj"/,  110  n. 

Salmeron's  division  of  a  Parable,  3fi  n. 

Samaritans  not  a  mingled  people,  246  u. 

Sarpiis,  112  n. 

Satan  and  his  agency  progressivley  un- 
folded in  Scripture,  75. 

"  Seventy  times  seven,"  118. 

Siloam,  272  n. 

Sin  and  Suffering:  their  connexion,271  n. 

Sins :  whether  if  once  forgiven  they  can 
return,  127. 

HiKoivSaXoi',  84  n. 

E/ii')!/)),  349  n. 

I.K\np6i,  219  n. 

Slaves  in  Antiquity,  213. 

Son  of  Man  :  force  of  the  Name,  70. 

Standing  a  posture  of  prayer  in  the  Early 
Church,  394. 

Story  illustrative  of  "  The  Unmerciful 
Servant,"  131  n. 

TiVyKvpia,  245  n. 

TtvvziXaa  Toii  aiuvos,  84  n. 


Supererogation,  works  of,  205,  383. 
Swedenborg,  39  n. 

T. 

Talent :  use  of  the  word  in  English,  214. 
'Tc\e(T(popciv,  63  n. 
Tc^civrj;,  288  n. 
TertuUian,  304. 

Qrjiravpo;,  98  n. 

To/ci5f,  221  n. 

Traditional  saying  cf  our  Lord,  221  n. 

Tribulation:  derivation  of  the  word,  61  n. 

Types  =  Parables,  28. 

Typical  personages,  23. 

U. 

'YiroSiiiiara,  323   n. 
'YTTU}Tna.^e.iv,  388  n. 

V. 

Vintage  and  harvest :  Bishop  Horsley's 
distinction,  84  n. 

W. 

White  Garments,  185  n. 

Wilderness  :    meaning  of  the  word  in 

Scripture,  293. 
Works,  spoken  of  in  the  NewTestament, 

of  three  kinds,  274. 


Zi^di/iov,  76  n. 


Z. 


THE    END. 


27 


DATE  DUE 

Rl*if; 

CAVLORO 

WM 


r-s^it 


.-..'i 


BS2418.T793 

Notes  on  the  parables  of  Our  Lord 

Princeton  Theological  Semmary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00067  8294 


ii 


^^§^ 


l-^C* 


-**«-ir 


.•vBc. 


'T^-.- 


mm/A 


■yS^ 


j^y- 


-.I^^Jt 


